


Pieces of a puzzle.

by loisselina (LoisSelina)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Adopted Children, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Adoption, Alternate Universe - Foster Family, American schools written by a brit, Amputation, Child Abuse, Child Alice, Child Emma Swan, Daddy Charming, F/M, Foster Care, Gen, HOH Emma, Hearing aids, Injury, KnightRook, Leopold was a terrible father and I genuinely head canon him having abused Snow, M/M, Mentions of alcoholism, Multi, Pain, Parent Prince Charming | David Nolan, Parent Snow White | Mary Margaret Blanchard, Parent Wishverse Captain Hook| Detective Rogers, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Past Incest, Past Injury, Past Sexual Abuse, Polyamory, Prosthetic hand, Protective Parent Prince Charming | David Nolan, Protective Parent Wishverse Captain Hook| Detective Rogers, Rogers' first name is Kian, Throuple, Triad - Freeform, daddy Wish!Hook, detectives David and Rogers, fostering, hard of hearing character, mama Snow, mentions of child abuse, non-biological child, oh I know yet another rare polyship, poly couple, prepare for inaccuracies, there'll be a warning at the start of the chapter with mention of that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-04-20 12:23:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14260899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoisSelina/pseuds/loisselina
Summary: Rogers, David, and Mary have been together for ten years and have already have a ten year old daughter, Alice, together.They all have their own issues and problems, but they're happy. That being said they feel like something's missing.They're waiting to adopt a baby, the last piece of their family, and only have four months to wait.In the mean time they decide to foster six year old Emma, what they assume is going to be a short stay, before she finds her forever family.





	1. The Charmings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look into the life of the four Charmings - David, Kian (Detective Rogers), Mary, and Alice, and the big decision they have to make.

 

Mary could smell dinner as she entered through the front door of her home, her arms laden with bags full of books from her fourth grade class ready to mark, she walked over to the family office and dumped them onto her desk. She quickly kicked off her shoes into the hallway before heading into the kitchen.

She smiled warmly as she saw her two husbands stood in the kitchen. Kian Charming was stood stirring a pot on the hob, his dark hair showed signs of having his hands run through it, he had clearly been working on a case on his day off. He looked up as she walked in and smiled lovingly at her as he continued to stir the food inside of the pot.

“Welcome home, love, dinner will be ready soon.” Despite having lived in the US since he was ten, he had kept his mixed English and Irish lilt, the one which made her knees and heart melt when she heard it.

She walked over to him and kissed him gently on the lips, his stubble scratched her skin a little, but she was so used to it she couldn’t imagine him shaving it off (well, she could, he had done it plenty of times, but he preferred it that way so and did she). “Hey, honey, that smells good, what’s cooking?”

“Shrimp, spinach, and bacon alfredo.” He told her with pride, he was a fairly competent cook, but he particularly excelled when seafood was concerned.

“Mmm, that sounds amazing.” She felt an arm slither around her waist, she turned her head slightly and David used the opportunity to press a chaste kiss to her lips. “Hey babe.” She turned more so that she was leaning back against the kitchen counter, and she placed her hand lightly onto the left side of his chest, barely even touching it. “How was physiotherapy?”

“It went well,” David smiled but felt a twinge of pain in his shoulder, “I’m making a lot of progress.”

Kian raised an eyebrow at his husband’s lies. “They’re worried about his shoulder, the gunshot wound is healing, but he still has limited movement.”

David rolled his eyes. “Tattletale.” He shot back playfully. “I’ll be fine.” He assured them but could see the worry on his wife and husband’s faces. He sighed gently. “If not… well, we’ll figure something out.” They weren’t worried about money, they had plenty of that from their jobs and from David and Mary’s trust funds, but David had wanted to be a detective since he was a kid and he wasn’t sure what he’d do instead of that job.

Snow kissed his libs gently, again, when she pulled back she gave him a sympathetic smile. “We will. Where’s our Alice?”

“In her den outside.”

Snow placed her hand on David’s back as she headed towards the backdoor. They had moved to the suburbs only a year before but Alice was clearly loving the big backyard they now had and had made herself a little den in the wooded area. Sometimes she missed their apartment in Hyperion Heights, it had been their first home, but this provided some more space for them all. “Alice!” She called. And again. After one more time her ten year old came skipping towards the house.

“Mommy!” Alice shouted happily and wrapped her arms around her mother. She felt a kiss on the top of her head as her mother wrapped her arms back around her. “You’ve been gone forever! We went to the park on the way home and I helped Papa make the pasta but then I got bored.” She rattled on as her mother shepherded her into the house.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for that, I had a very important meeting with the principle, but the alfredo smells amazing! I’m sure it’s the nicest it’s ever tasted because you helped make it.” She took in her daughter. She was so proud to call her her daughter. She was ten and growing like a weed, it seemed like only yesterday the baby had been left on their doorstep. “Go wash up sweetie, dinner’s nearly done, after I’ll give you a hand with your homework.” She said once they entered the kitchen from the backdoor. She watched her daughter run off out of the kitchen and down the hall.  

Alice was the result of a one night stand Kian had before the three of them were in a relationship, it was that moment, that she looked down at the little baby, that Mary became sure that she wanted to be a mother more than anything else in the world. And she had; they raised Alice, got married as soon as it was legal for three people to do so, then she had gotten pregnant… and miscarried… and again… and again…and again. After four miscarriages she had gone in to be tested, as had David, but it was _she_ who could not carry a baby. They thought through all of their options, after giving themselves time to recover from the news, and about the option of surrogacy but had decided upon adoption. The problem was babies tended to get given new homes so quickly, and like so many others they wanted to experience parenthood again from the start, so they began fostering. They tended to foster toddlers, each and every one they fell in love with, but they knew that although they loved all of them none were exactly right. They assumed that if they had a baby from at most a few months old they would feel it click. So they waited. They had taken a break from fostering when David was shot in the line of duty and they had moved into their new home, but David had mentioned talking to Matilda, their support worker, when he had rung before his physiotherapy appointment.

Mary dragged herself out of her head and walked back over to her husbands. They may not have a baby but they were happy.

“Come on, Kee, we’re hungry.”

“Give us a minute, Davey, it’s not quite ready.” He rolled his eyes at his husband’s impatience.

David rolled his eyes again. “Perfectionist.” He said without mirth. He walked over to the oven and pulled out the tray. His daughter buzzed into the room, seemingly following the smell. “Daddy’s famous three cheese garlic bread!” He announced in a grand voice, he beamed as his little girl giggled.

“I can take it to the table.” Alice offered, watching him wince as he cut it up, she bit her lip in worry.

David stopped what he was doing, he felt his spouses pause and their eyes on him but he only had eyes for his little girl, he placed down the knife and kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry, princess, I’m okay.” He whispered. “Why don’t you grab yourself a soda for the table, there’s ice in the fridge.”

Alice grinned and nodded her head. She grabbed her favourite glass, a tall one with M.C Escher inspired stairs twisting around it but with Alice in Wonderland characters poking out of it, and pressed it against the ice machine in the fridge door before filling it with ice cold soda. She took it over to her place at the table, she had set with plates and cutlery earlier, and sat down, watching her parents. They moved around each other as thought they were dancing, laughing at some joke she didn’t hear as they each did their own thing, she smiled brightly knowing the loved they shared for each other and for her.

Soon the family sat down at the table, the adults with wine and Alice with a rarely had soda, and ate. The whole time the kitchen was full of life – the sounds of talking and laughing, they all shared their days, the happier parts at least, and shared funny memories.

 

* * *

 

 

“Sweetie, I know that you have math homework, go and grab it please.” Mary said once they had all finished their alfredo and were all full with food and happiness. Although Alice wasn’t in her class Mary taught the same year at the school, in the other class, so knew all of the homework Alice got.

“That’ll be her gone ‘finding’ it for about half an hour.” Kian laughed, she was a bit of a scatterbrain when it came to things like that, he went to pick up the dishes but his wife beat him to it. He sent her a look.

“Because you two cooked dinner,” she assured him, “ _not_ because one is prosthetic.”

Kian gave her a tight smile, he knew that his spouses were more than used to his prosthetic hand, unlike most new people who freaked out when they found out about it and tried to do everything for him. He was just a little touchy at the moment as he was waiting for a new hand to be made for him, one with plenty of bells and whistles, which would be almost like a real hand. It was a plus point of Robin’s, Mary’s step-mother’s husband, family owning a tech company. He saw David go to pick up the glasses, barely hiding the pain from his shoulder and chest, and moved his hand to quickly snatch them up.  
“This _is_ because you’re injured.” He said echoing the way Mary had said it. He and Mary laughed and David rolled his eyes, playfully. His kissed his husband’s cheek as he stood up. “Take your pain pills, love, we’ve got this.”

David sighed, he hated having to take them, they made him feel tired and he hated that he even needed them. He went to grab them, feeling his wife rub his back on his way there, when he got back he grabbed a glass of juice to take his tablets with.  
“So, Matilda called today.” He told his wife, Kian had been with him when they he had taken the phone call, he already knew the news he was about to tell her.  “She said there’s going to be a baby coming into care in four months.”

“What!” Mary gasped. “Four months? What’s the story?”

“The mom already has five kids in foster care because of abuse, she’s five months pregnant, and she’s already agreed to surrender to parental rights as soon as this one is born. Matilda has said that as soon as we said yes she’d put us down to foster it with the intent to adopt, she said she’d wait for us to ask you in case you said no.”

“What! Of course I wouldn’t say no! Ring her back right now, we’ll leave a message on her answering machine.” Her husbands suddenly burst into laughter. “What?” She frowned puzzled.

“You really think that we didn’t tell her that straight away, Mare?” David laughed.

“Yeah, even Matilda found it funny,” Kian smirked, “after we all finished laughing she placed our name on the top of the list for the kid, above all the others.”

Mary couldn’t help but beam. In four months’ time they’d have another baby in their life. They already had a room set aside to be the nursery, they had had it set aside for years, apparently it would finally be getting some use. She frowned for a moment.

“What’s up?” David placed the plates into the dishwasher after Mary rinsed them off.

Kian placed his hand on Mary’s back, he had been about to shout Alice to remind her that she was meant to be grabbing her homework, but had paused hearing David’s concerned voice.

“The main guest bedroom is bigger than the one we’ve had set aside for a baby.”

“Maybe we should wait to decorate it then, love, just in case.” Kian kissed her temple. He left the reason why open, they all knew that the reason could be as easy as needing to use the biggest one for a guest, or social services deciding to place the baby with one of its siblings who already had homes. They just had to hope for the best.

“That sounds like a good plan.” David agreed. He stood back up and pressed a kiss to his husband’s mouth before doing the same to his wife.

“Hey I found my math homework,” Alice said running into kitchen with her worksheet and another one, “and I have this!”

“Princess, you don’t have to run in the house, remember.” David told her gently. He walked over to her and took hold of the sheet she was waving about. “Family tree, huh? I think you might need to write really small.”

“Mrs Kapoor just said I could add another sheet of paper.” She shrugged. “We’re learning all about different types of families and about our own. I think I’m going to have the biggest one.”

David smiled, they were good friends with Jasmine, he sat down at the table next to his daughter.

“Aye, I think you just might, Starfish.” Kian called over.

 

* * *

 

 

After Alice had finished her homework, with the help of David, and Mary and Kian had both finished their own work stuff, the family settled down on the couch to watch a movie.

“How is Matilda, by the way?” Mary asked, she and Alice were sat between David and Kian, she leant back against Kian so she could look at David.

“Are we getting another kid?” Alice sat up straighter, her eyes wide as was her smile, full of excitement.

“No sweetie.” Mary told her gently.

“She was just wanting to catch up.” David not entirely lying, more just gently fibbing. “Matilda’s good, she’s engaged now. She was just about to visit a kid in hospital.”

“Was the kid… hurt?” This time it was Mary asking the question.

David nodded slowly. “Plus she had been ill anyway, asthma and a chest infection, Matilda’s trying to find her a home but apparently she’s been through a lot of different foster homes, a lot of them just aren’t willing to give the kid time to adjust and all the help she needs.”

“How long until she ages out?” Mary only knew too well that often the kids just turned eighteen and aged out without ever finding an adoptive family.

Kian sighed. He had been one of those kids. “About twelve years?” He offered sardonically. “She’s only six.”

Mary’s heart fell heavily, she could tell that this knowledge had been weighing on her husbands’ hearts as well, she snuggled closer to Kian and reached over to squeeze David’s hand.

Alice bit her lip, she didn’t even care that they had missed the start of Bolt with their talking, the girl they were talking about was just four years younger than her. “What’s going to happen to her?”

They all shared a look. “She’ll find a forever home, Starfish, I promise.”

“Yeah,” David cuddled Alice closer to him, “y’know Matilda, she always finds children homes.”

Mary didn’t say anything, she just nodded, she ran her hand through Alice’s hair – she couldn’t bear to think about her daughter in that position. Ill and injured and completely alone. She pressed a kiss to Alice’s hair. “I bet the next home she’s taken to will be her best one yet, and she’ll find her forever family, and she’ll be just as happy as we all are.”

 

* * *

 

 

Mary snuggled down in between her husbands in their big bed, it was one of her favourite places in the entire world, but her heart was still heavily. They led there, in the dark but all awake, in an uncharacteristic silence.

“Let’s foster her. That kid. Let's foster her.”

“You think?” David asked, surprised, but beyond pleased.

“Are you sure?” Kian asked at the exact same time in the same tone.

A slow smile spread across her face. “You two have already talked about this, haven’t you?”

“We just happened to mention to each other that our training is for kids up to ten years old, and that we’re not the sort of people to give up on anyway, let alone a child.”

“Kee’s right… the only thing is we’ll have a baby in four months, Matilda said that she was trying to find an adoptive family for her, she said she’d be able to find one.”

“… If not she’d be moved when the baby got here…” Mary pondered sadly.

“Four months is a long time.” Kian rubbed his stub as he thought about it.

“And here is much better than some group home or some foster home using her for her pay check…” David’s hand absently drifted to his injured shoulder. It had been months but it was barely healed. He had nearly died being shot there, it had put his life in perspective, shown him what was important. It made him think about how much he loved his spouses, and how he adored his daughter, and how raising her had been the best thing in his entire life. And how much he wanted to do it again.

“Let’s do it.” Mary said certainly. “Let’s give this kid a temporary home. It’ll give us some more practice before our baby comes.”

“I’ll call Matilda tomorrow morning.” David promised, they wanted to do this as soon as possible, and he knew that his spouses would be going to work in the morning while he would be stuck at home anyway.

“Sounds good, we’ll talk to Alice tomorrow, and we can get a some things ready in the guest bedroom.”  


	2. Emma Swan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma Swan finds out where she will be going after her stay in the hospital is over

Emma Swan had only two natural gifts, it seemed: reading, and ruining everything she even breathed near. That was what she had been told, constantly, at least. She had been told it by foster parents, staff workers in some of the worse group homes, and foster siblings who found her an easy target. She tried to ignore them and put them to the back of her mind, as her friend August had told her that everyone was wrong about her and that she was very special, but it was hard to remember sometimes.

But reading was something pure, something no one could ever corrupt, something she excelled at. She was only six but she had been reading actual books for years, they were her windows into magical worlds, the most perfect escapes ever invented.

She sat in the hospital bed clinging onto her second hand copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, it was dog-eared, it had yellowed pages, and the spine had been cracked because she had read it a hundred times – that being said, it was her most treasure possession. Well, that along with a barely working iPod Shuffle and overhead headphones, which she wore almost all of the time. She flicked her book open and searched for one of her favourite parts; where Harry was looking into the Mirror of Erised and could see his parents, and his grandparents, great aunts and uncles, generations far back, his family.

She already knew her birth family, she had spent years going in and out of care, going from abusive foster homes back to her abusive birth parents. She was four the last time she had seen them she had been told by her social worker that she wouldn’t be going back to them ever again, that she’d finally be able to be adopted, but that had been two years ago and not much had changed since – just going from abuse to different abuse.

She rested the book over the pale yellow cast on her injured arm so that she could use her other hand to move her hearing aid to scratch the skin beneath it. She moved it back into place and made sure to crank up the volume, they were on the brink and had been for a while, so she had to make sure that they were on high so she could hear. She didn’t want to bug her new social worker about them: She had taken a liking to her social worker, and Matilda had been so nice with her, she didn’t want to ruin that just yet.

 

* * *

 

Matilda wished that she was able to spend all her time in the hospital, she thought that every time she walked through the hospital doors and headed towards the children’s’ wing and the ward which Emma was on, but after Emma’s previous social worker was fired Matilda had taken on half of his case files and she was working herself to the nail as they waited for a replacement. She had insisted on keeping Emma’s the first time she met her, in the hospital after Emma had been found on the street, she wasn’t going to stop until she found Emma a forever home. She made it up to Emma’s private room without even glancing at the signs, but she stopped when she made it to the door of the six year old’s room.

Emma was sat up in the bed reading with a nasal cannula helping her keep her oxygen levels up, she was bruised all over her pale skin and had several cuts, she could hear the wheezing she was making as she was breathing from the other side of the room. She looked tiny in the bed, she was the size of a four year old not a six year old, but she looked a whole lot better than she had when she was first rushed in.

In her bag was her notepad and Emma’s big file: inside were detailed reports and pictures from the moment she was left in the NICU by her birth mother to foster homes to all the times her birth parents Clayton and Elisabet got her back and neglected and abused her, it was too big a file for any child, yet alone a child only just six. Emma had been let down by everyone, and Matilda was certain she was not going to be like everyone else.

She knocked on the doorway of the room and smiled at Emma as she looked up. “Good afternoon Emma.” She sat down on the chair beside Emma’s bed. “I’m sorry I’ve not been able to get here earlier, I had to go see some other kids, but I talked to your doctor this morning, he said you’re getting a lot better.”

Emma shrugged her shoulders. “It’s okay, I know you have to visit more than just me, one of the nurses did some colouring with me.” She told her with a small smile. She wasn’t sure what she was meant to say about getting a lot better, she felt it herself, but the hospital had been the nicest place she had been in the last six years – when she got better she would have to leave.

Matilda smiled sympathetically, she knew what was in her mind, she had been in her position a long time ago. She reached into her bag. “I brought you a couple of presents.” First she pulled out a pair of jeans, a coral t-shirt with a sketch of a diplodocus dinosaur on it.

“Woah!” Emma beamed as she picked up the t-shirt. “It’s got a Long Neck on it!”

Matilda grinned back at her, she knew about Emma’s love of dinosaurs and animals, it wouldn’t surprise her if Emma knew the proper name of the dinosaur but didn’t want to show off. “I’m glad you like it, I thought that maybe you could wear it when you get out of the hospital in a few days.”

Emma looked down at the new t-shirt, her excitement had completely worn off, she bit her lip and felt her breathing quicken a little. She resisted bringing her thumb to her mouth, she only did that in private, it was too dangerous to show any vulnerability.  “Where am I going to this time? Back to Ashdown?”

Matilda sighed, Emma was far too old for her age, and had been in far too many Homes without being in a _home_. She put on a smile. “I was just talking to a very nice family this morning, they’re my friends, and they’re the nicest and most loving people I know. They heard that you were sick and they really want to look after you while I find you a forever family.”

“This isn’t gonna be my forever family?” She didn’t expect to ever have one, yet she was still disappointed.

Matilda placed her hand on the child’s cheek and gave her a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry, honey. But I’m searching very hard to find you a forever family. And this family is going to be completely different from all the ones you’ve been in before.”

“Why?” She couldn’t control her curiosity.

“Well there’s not just two foster parents, there’s three.” Polyamory wasn’t uncommon or unheard of anymore, but within the foster parent community it was rare, even lgbtq foster parents were uncommon. “There’s two foster-daddies and a foster-mommy. There’s also a little girl who’s only a few years older than you. Emma, I know you’ve gone through a lot of foster parents and your old social worker didn’t put you in very nice homes – you’ve only known me for a few days but when I was a little girl I was hurt by people who were meant to look after me too. So I became a social worker to help kids like you, and I _will_ find you a forever family, but while I’m looking I’m only going to put you with the nicest families.”

Emma slowly nodded her head, she found that she trusted Matilda though she was cautious about it, but what she wanted more than anything was to stay in the hospital where she had never been hurt and had been cared for. “Okay.” She whispered.

Matilda reached into her bag and pulled out a brand new book. “This is one of my favourites,” she told her passing it over, “it’s yours to keep forever.” She eyed the beat up Harry Potter book on the bed. “I’ll let you into a little secret, the little girl in this book is a little like you, and Harry, and me – she finds a home as well, just like you will.”

Emma was sceptical, she had only read the first Harry Potter and he had found Hogwarts but he still had to spend every summer with his aunt, uncle, and cousin being neglected and abused… maybe homes and perfect families only applied to people named Matilda.


	3. Two Mornings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two different mornings for the Charmings and Emma Swan

 

Kian woke up with a start, covered in cold sweat and his heart beating, he looked for his spouses, he panicked finding he was alone, but when he glanced at the clock he realised why. He had majorly overslept. Well, he guessed that it wasn’t really oversleeping for most people, but usually he would wake up and go for a jog to start his day. He sat up, dragged his hand over his face, he sighed deeply. It had all just been a dream. He grabbed his prosthetic hand from the stand on the bedside table and fastened it on to where his arm had been amputated. It was a part of him, but he could remember how foreign prosthetics felt to wear when he was a child and had first lost his hand, though this one was a million times better, it was almost like a real hand. He moved the hands of the hand, testing it as he always did, he knew he’d be getting a new one soon and although he was looking forward to it, it would be weird to have a completely different hand.

He dragged himself out of bed, wishing he could just skip work and sleep… and hang out with his husband, they didn’t always work together as they weren’t work partners, but they would hang out on their breaks, he missed that time together. He forwent a shower due to the accidental lie in, but quickly washed his face in the en-suite, before getting dressed in his usual dark clothes.

Once dressed he headed down the stairs, he heard Alice shout through her closed bedroom door, having hear him passing by. “Papa! The kid’s coming today!”

He knew better than to distracted Alice when she was meant to be doing something, instead he raced down the stairs, and into the kitchen where he knew his spouses always were in the mornings.

“Morning.” Mary called, jotting something down in her planner for her day teaching.

“Hey.” David was scribbling furiously on a piece of paper, his greeting was more of a habit than an actual greeting.

“Uh, hey.” Kian was still frowning in confusion. “Al said that the kid’s coming _today_?”

Mary took a long sip of her latte and nodded as she swallowed. “Yeah, Dave answered the call from Matilda at about seven,” she took another sip of her coffee and checked her watch, “the doctors are going to discharge her today, Matilda asked if we’d be able to take her in today.”

“Let me guess, if not she was going to have to take her to a children’s home.” He already knew the answer before his husbands head bobbed. “Did I do something?” He joked, nodding his head towards David who hadn’t looked up from his list at all, Kian poured himself a big mug of coffee.

“David’s trying to make a list of the things we need to get for Emma,” Mary said in a stage whisper, “he’s _kind of_ stressing.”

“There’s a lot we don’t have,” David pointed out, “we’ve never fostered a kid her age, and normally we’re all home for when we got the foster kid. We all have tomorrow off which is when we were going to get stuff sorted.”

The detective placed his hand on his husband’s back, usually he’d take the mick out of David, but he wasn’t quite in the mood to. “Better than with Alice, we had no preparation with her, just suddenly a baby on the doorstep.” Just then their daughter walked through the doorway, in her school uniform, running around trying to get ready for school. “You only have one shoe on, Starfish.” He pointed out gently.

Mary placed her hand on the top of her daughter’s head to get her to pause and focus on just her for a second. “Sweetheart, you need to go find your other shoe and grab your bag, we’re all running late this morning, I’ll grab you a slice of toast and you can eat it on the way or while you hang out in my classroom.”

“Mare, I’ll take her, love.” Kian said, he placed his hand on her back as he leant down and kissed her lips, as he did he felt his nightmare start to wash away like marks in the sand as he felt the love of his new family. “Just worry about you being ready, I’ll make sure Starfish has more than a slice of toast, I’ll take her to school on my way to work.” he dropped a kiss onto the top of Alice’s blonde head. “What do you say, Starfish, is Papa’s car a worthy chariot?”

“Yeah!” Alice beamed, and she jumped up and down, her papa’s car was probably the coolest out of her parents’ cars.

“You still have to go on your booster seat, it’s the law! Go find your shoe quickly, sweetie, then Papa will make you some breakfast. I love you and I’ll see you in school.” She kissed her daughter’s forehead and she received a tight hug in return.

“I love you mommy.” Alice told her. “Are you sure I can’t just skip and go with Daddy?” She pouted, she looked back to David, but he obviously hadn’t heard.

“Nope, sorry, but when you get home you’ll have a new little foster sister- just remember we have to be careful around her, she’ll probably be scared, and she’s poorly.”

“I’ll help look out for her.” Alice told her mom with a smile, as though it would be that easy. She hugged her tight again. “I’ll see you at school mommy.” She raced off in search of the errant shoe.

“I miss you being in _uniform_.” Mary turned to Kian as Alice left the room, she placed her hand on David’s back and started to rub circles on it as she talked to their husband, she was a little worried about how stressed he seemed, but then she hadn’t stopped worrying about him since he had been shot. “You didn’t used to drive your old Camaro when you were in uniform.”

“Oh please, we all know it’s because I made that uniform work, like really well, much better than Davey.” He looked over at David waiting for him to protest, just David was deep in his thoughts as he stared at the list. “I got this.” He poured himself a cup of coffee and made one for David.

Mary sighed gently and quickly started to pack her things into her bag, including her lunch, and grabbed the bag with the marked homework in it, she couldn’t forget that.

“Dave.” Kian waited for his husband to look up before he handed him the mug of coffee, made just how David liked it, with a lot of creamer and sugar. “Coffee will make sure you’re not grumpy today.” He smirked at David’s playful scowl but he ran his hand through his husbands dirty-blond hair before gently kissing his lips, he didn’t even realise that he had now forgotten his nightmare completely. The list is perfect, just make sure we have what she’ll need for tonight and tomorrow, we’ll go shopping tomorrow with the little one while Alice is at school.”

Mary picked up her bags ready to go then walked over to David. She placed her hand on either of his cheeks, before gently kissing his lips, she pulled away but she didn’t let go of the cheeks. “You need to stop worrying, she will absolutely love you, she won’t hate you at all. I’m sure. Call me later.” She pecked his lips again. “Remember to make sure you write down all her medical things and ask Matilda for her clothes size and-“

“And everything else possible?” Kian asked with a sarcastic smile.

David cracked a mischievous smile as he wrote it down on the list. “Okay, I got ‘ _everything possible’_ on the list, anything else?” He added sounding angelic.

“Okay, he’s back to normal now.” Mary rolled her eyes but she was relieved. “Okay I’m going to go, I’ll see you two after work, I love you both.”

“Bye babe.”

“Love you too.” They called.

When Alice got downstairs (with two shoes on her feet now) the three quickly ate breakfast and gathered all they needed for the day. Alice was so excited she could barely sit still, she kept talking about all the things she was going to do with her foster sister, and asking how long she would be staying.

David still felt guilty about not being able to take his daughter to school. “I’m sorry, Princess, I would take you but the hospital your foster sister’s in is on the other side of the city, and I’ve gotta get there as soon as possible.”

“I could come with you.” Alice offered hopefully, she dumped her plate into the dishwasher and placed her lunch into her bag.

David shot her his charming smile, dumping his and Kian’s plates into the dishwasher and turning it on, Kian tidied up the place. “As much as I would love that, you mommy would kill me, and Emma needs a little time to get used to being with us. We’re strangers to her and she’s been really poorly but I’m sure that having you here will help her a lot.”

Kian placed his hand on Alice’s shoulder and led her out of the house, David followed them. Both men picked up their house and car keys on the way out.

“I’ll try not to be weird around her,” Alice promised, “then she might like this place. Maybe she’ll even like me.”

It broke her fathers’ hearts to hear her sound so hopeful while putting herself down.

“Hey,” David crouched down to look her in the eyes, “you are not weird and you shouldn’t feel ashamed of yourself.”

“Never, ever, change yourself to make yourself fit in with other people, Starfish.” Kian added stroking her cheek. “She’ll like you for who you are. Let me tell you a little secret- all the best people are a little different, if we were all the same the world would be a very, very boring place. Please never let being scared of what others think change you.”

“You’re the most important girl in our entire world, and nothing is going to change that, Princess, you’re always going to be our number one.”

“Until you get a baby.”

David shared a panicked and silent conversation with his husband. “Erm… what do you mean?”

“I’m not a little kid, I’m ten, and I’m good at finding things out.” She shrugged but she was fighting a proud smile over not having been seen or heard. “Is Emma still gonna be here when we get the baby?”

“Nah,” Kian threw his arm around her shoulder, “she’ll have her own family by then. Are you okay with us adopting a baby?”

“We were going to tell you, Al, all of us together, a little closer to the time – when we knew more about it.”

“Chill.” Alice grinned. “I can’t wait! I hope it’s a boy. Is it gonna be a boy? Can I hold it first? Can I name it?”

“ _Chill_.” David mouthed to Kian: Their little girl was growing up way too fast, she was already a pre-teen, it felt like a day ago she was still having tantrums. “How about we talk about this with mommy later? We don’t know too much but we’ll talk about it all, the new baby, and us looking after Emma for a little while. Now, I’ve gotta go, I love you.” He kissed Alice’s forehead. “And I love you.” He pulled his husband closer and kissed him. “Thank you for this morning, Kee.”

The three people split into two groups and went their separate ways.

 

* * *

 

 

In a hospital, about an hour away, Emma sat fidgeting in the hospital bed as a doctor checked her temperature and listened to her chest

“I hear you’re a very luckily and you get to break out of here today.”

Emma shrugged her shoulders, her toyed with her handmade blanket, she needed to pack it safely in her beat up backpack which held all her other worldly possessions. “I guess.” She knew Matilda had said they were nice, but her last social worker had said all the other places were nice, she was old enough now to know that adults fundamentally sucked and couldn’t be trusted.

The doctor frowned, he didn’t like to see the girl so down, he reached into his lab coat pocket and pulled out a handful of things. “You’ve been my favourite patient here, you’ve been very good, I’m sure that you are going to find a very good family soon, I’m willing to bet on it. I got you a few leaving presents.” He passed her a small pot of bubbles, a few lollypops, and a small pot of jam like she usually got with her breakfast. “I’ll swing by and talk to you when your new foster parents get here.” He ruffled her hair before continuing on his rounds.

Emma smiled at the gifts, she held them to her heart, then hid them at the bottom of her backpack, it was where she had hidden any and all sealed food she had got since she had turned up in the hospital, just in case. She had spent too long being starved to not prepare. She buried her blanket in her backpack and pulled out the _Matilda_ book her social worker had given her.

She started to read.


	4. Meeting Emma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David meets Emma at the hospital.

 

It took David almost two hours to get to the hospital, through the morning traffic, but as soon as he got there he headed for the canteen where Matilda has asked him to meet her.

“Tilly.” He smiled and the two friends hugged in greeting, he was careful of his shoulder as he did so, but it was aching much less than it had been the day before.

“You know only you guys are allowed to call me that, right?”

“Us, _and Emily_.” David pointed out with a smirk, they had been friends with Matilda in college over a decade before, he was made up that his friend had found someone to love just like he had found his two true loves. He gently took hold of her hand. “Wow, look at that rock.”

“She’s a banker.” She pointed out in a joke they had often made. “Here I got you a coffee and some toast.”

“Thanks.” He dumped some sugar and milk into the coffee and took a log sip. “I’m guessing Mary told you that I hadn’t eaten?”

“Kian.” She smiled. All three of her friends had always fussed over each other when they were worried, but Kian and Mary had been extra worried since David had been hurt. “How’s the shoulder?”

He stretched it instinctively. “It’s much better than it was.” But not what it had once been. He took a bite of his toast. “So I have a few questions.”

“Shoot.”

“What size clothes is she in? I’m gonna take her to grab some bits on the way home, and we’re gonna get some more tomorrow with Kee and Mare.” He explained.

“The checks for her won’t be coming in until the end of the week.” She warned, as she did with all the foster parents who worked for her.

“You know we don’t care about that.” He told her truthfully. “We’ll just stick the money into a bank account for the kid until she’s older, for college or a car, whatever she needs. That’s allowed, right?”

She smiled, they had done the same thing before, they always pointed out that they didn’t need the money and that it wasn’t the reason why they fostered. Between two trust funds and three good jobs she understood, she didn’t know how much David and Mary had inherited but she had a feeling they could live the rest of their lives on the interests alone. “I don’t see why not.” She frowned. “Emma’s tiny, she’s only the size of a four year old, but she’s super intelligent but only on things which can be read – she’s had barely any life experiences, the only ones I can tell she’s even had are negative.”

 “Al was in like size seven or eight when she was Emma’s age.” David frowned despite the pleasant memory of his daughter when she was just six. “And we’re going to make sure she gets that, I promise.”

She gently squeezed his hand. “I know you will. You got any more questions for me?”

“Mostly medical – allergies, conditions, and treatments for everything.”

 

* * *

After they went over the things they signed the paperwork, Matilda liked to do it away from the child so they wouldn’t make the child feel like an object or something, then they went to the children’s ward.

“Emma, this is David Charming, he’s one of your new foster fathers.” Matilda introduced with a smile. “Dave, this is Emma Swan.”

David walked over to where Emma was sat, in the chair beside the bed, he crouched in front of her so he could look her in the eyes. “Hey Emma, it’s really nice to finally meet you, Matilda told me lots about you. My name’s David, you can call me Dave, David, Davey, I pretty much answer to anything.” He joked.

A small smile tugged at Emma’s mouth. She held her Matilda book closer to her, against her chest, as though it were a shield. “Hi.” She mumbled shyly. “David.” She added quickly, sticking to the name Matilda had introduced him as, just to be safe. She didn’t want to overstep her boundaries, she knew she was just another foster kid.

David smiled gently. He took in the kid in front of him; Matilda was right, she looked like she was four, and acted shy but she was trying to put on a brave face. A blue beat up backpack was next to her, her arm looped through the strap as though it were a lifeline, it was almost empty. “Matilda, huh?” He said smiling at the book she was holding, he smirked back at the social worker, then smiled gently at his new foster daughter. “I’ve never read that but I had watched the movie, have you seen it?”

Emma bit her lip. She slowly shook her head then pushed herself to speak more. “I’ve not seen it… Matilda gave me the book… Have you seen Harry Potter?”

David’s smile widened and he nodded his head. “I have, I love those movies, and I’ve read all of the books. My husband, Kian, and my wife, Mary, also love Harry Potter, we dressed up as Harry, Ron, and Hermione last Halloween, and my daughter Alice dressed up as Luna. They all wish that they could have come with me to come and take you back to our home, but Mary had to go to work, she’s a fourth grade teacher, and Kian had to go to work too, he is a type of policeman, I am too but I’m off work for a little while.”

“Why?” She froze, she hadn’t meant her curiosity to get the better of her.

David gave her a smile letting her know that it was okay. “I was trying to stop some bad guys with Kian and some other police detectives, we put them into prison for a very long time, but they hurt me.” He pulled down the neck of his tee to show her the two marks from the gun shots between his heart and his shoulder. He had nearly died, and it had messed up how well he could use his arm, too messed up to be working other than a desk job at the moment. “So I’m off work for a while.”

Emma slowly relaxed, he genuinely seemed not to care that she had asked him a question, in fact he seemed to like that she was connecting with him.  She was glad that he caught the bad guys, she didn’t like that he had been hurt, he seemed like he might be nice and kind… but she was still reserving judgement. “Okay.”

David smiled. “Y’know, my brother owns a bookstore with his wife, we could go there one day, if you like?”

Emma’s eyes widened at the idea. She nodded her head though she tried not to  get her hopes up.

Matilda smiled at the pair of them, she could tell that Emma was holding back, it was heart breaking to see that on a child so young, but she knew that if anyone could help her the Charmings could. In the meantime she would be looking for an adoptive family for the little girl, she would make sure it was perfect for her. “Emma, sweetheart, I’ll give you a card with my number on it, if you need me at any time you can call me. Let’s put it in the front pocket of your backpack.”

“Okay.” Emma took the card and slipped it in, not wanting her social worker and foster father to see all of the little bits of food she had hidden away.

The doctor entered and handed David what seemed like a million leaflets about different things, along with a copy of the medical file which he might need, he expertly hid the feeling of worry and the face he felt way out of his depth. Then came all of the medicines –antibiotics and steroids, plus prescriptions for a couple more things which he could pick up on the way home like inhalers and their accessories, and PediaSure to try and get her weight and growth up, plus pain relief medicine for her arm and other injuries. He put the file, leaflets, and medicines into the backpack he had purposely brought. When he was passed a card with the next appointment for Emma’s arm he slipped it into his wallet, they had said that he could switch it to a nearer hospital and he thought that he would talk to his spouses about that – they’d probably go with whichever Emma preferred.

The child sat still through all of this, a sign that she had gotten used to this, it hurt David, but he was certain that Matilda would find Emma a family where she would never be moved again. Once he had everything he crouched down in front of Emma, Matilda had helped her into her oversized and well-worn jacked, and she was holding her backpack super tightly. He smiled gently, and slowly and carefully placed his hand on her uninjured one. It was colder than he expected. “One of the hospital rules is you have to leave being pushed in a wheelchair,” he nodded towards the one the doctor had brought in with him, “I’ll push it for you, I can do it nice and slow, or we can race over the bumps and hills, it’s your choice.”

Emma thought for a minute. “Racing.”

David only just heard her quiet voice, but he beamed as he helped her into the wheelchair, and made sure that Emma hadn’t forgotten anything. “I can carry your backpack for you, if you like?” He offered.

“No!” Emma’s panicked voice was about sixty times louder than her previous answer. She immediately regretted it. She sank back in terror.

David slowly and calmly held up his hands in a surrendering gesture. “Okay Emma, that’s okay, you can keep a hold of your bag, that’s not a problem at all. Emma, I promise you that I’m never going to hurt you, neither are Mary or Kian. You’re safe with us. I know that’s hard to believe right now, because a lot of adults who were supposed to look after you didn’t, but we’re going to prove it to you.”

Emma had never heard words akin to that come out of an adult’s mouth. He genuinely seemed to believe his words, but no adults had ever said anything like that to her, especially with such conviction. She found herself starting to believe him. She supposed she might as well give him a chance, she had given worse people more chances in her six years of life, she nodded her head. “’Kay.” She mumbled.

Matilda had never seen a foster parent so expertly calm and reassure a child they had met thirty minutes before, especially Emma, who had so many reasons for being guarded and scared.

“Thank you, Emma.” David gave her an honest but charming smile. “Now, let’s break you out of here, yeah?”

A small smile appeared on Emma’s face, she had been in the hospital for ages, and Matilda had told her that David and his family lived a little outside of the city, in an _actual_ house, she had only ever lived in apartments, so she was a little excited to see it. “Yeah. Let’s go.” She let David help her into the wheelchair and he made sure she wasn’t going to fall out, he did so without any hesitation, she wasn’t used to that either.

 

 

* * *

As promised David raced down the hill like corridor, he made sound effects as though they were a race car, and for the first time in what felt like forever Emma found herself giggling. David’s antics even made people they passed in the hospital laughed or smile.

David felt his heart lighten as he heard her little giggles, he could tell that she was restraining herself from all out laughing, but hearing her laugh had the same effect on him as Alice’s laughter did, he was sure that her adoptive father would love her as much as he loves Alice. And as much as he would love the new baby.

 

* * *

“Thanks for the loaner.” David said to Matilda as he finished fastening the carseat into the back of his car. “We’re going to get one tomorrow so we can get this back to you as soon as possible.” He looked down at Emma in Matilda’s arms. “Hey, kiddo, let’s get you in here, and you can have your backpack in with you.” He lifted her up and placed her into the carseat.

“It’s no problem, thank you for making coming today.” She knew several foster carers who despite being nice wouldn’t have accepted a child two days early. She passed Emma her bag. “I’ll be by in two days, okay? On Friday, but if you need me before then you have my number.”

“Home check?” David smiled.

“Yeah, you know I gotta… Plus I haven’t seen your new digs yet.” She nudged him playfully.

“We’ll see you on Friday then, I’m sure Alice will be made up to see you.” He smiled at Matilda then down at Emma. “My little girl, Alice, loves books just like you – all my family do, you’ll fit right in.”

Emma just smiled and held onto her bag before saying goodbye to Matilda.

 

 

* * *

After David said his goodbyes to his friend he climbed into the front and did up his own belt. “We’re going to stop off on the way back home, we’ll pick up your medicines and some more bits for you, we want you to feel at home in our home. And tomorrow me, you, and Mary, and Kian, are going to go back into the city and pick up more things for you and for your room.” He told her in a happy tone.

Emma frowned, she knew that foster parents got money to look after her and to buy her things, but it was normally a few days before they got that. David didn’t seem to care about it being his own money, even her birth parents had hated to even spend a dime on her, so why didn’t this stranger? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chat to me any time on Tumblr: Loboselinaistrash (alternative - loboselinafanfiction)   
> Prompts are always welcome for this or any series!


	5. Pit Stop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David and Emma stop at Target for some things for Emma and bond with each other.

David drove until he got to the Target he had passed on the way to the hospital, as he drove he talked to Emma, it was a short drive but he was just trying to talk and put her at ease – he was trying to find out more about her, he struggled to keep his positive tone of voice when she admitted that she had run away to live on the street when her previous foster parents had hurt her. He hated those foster parents for hurting her, he wished he could go back in time and stop her from getting hurt, but all he could do was tell her he was sorry that she was ever hurt and that he promised she wouldn’t get hurt at his house. David winced every time he heard her cough or wheeze, he just hoped that the medicine would work on her soon and help her feel better.

They pulled up and parked in one of the closest spots to the store and David walked to the back to help Emma out. He noticed Emma shivering a little, despite the heating having been on due to the colder weather that day, he realised her shoes had some holes in them. Instead of just letting her out to hold his hand out of the car he decided to pick her up. “You can sit in the cart when we get into the store,” he smiled and grabbed his jacket from the seat beside Emma’s, “your backpack will be safe in the car, do you want me to put it safe in the back with mine or leave it here?”

Emma debated it for a second, it was a little weird being in David’s arms but she felt safe, she couldn’t help but feel as though her backpack would be the same. “With yours.” Emma answered quietly and was rewarded with another one of David’s seemingly endless smiles. She watched him place her blue one next to his black one in the trunk, despite it being dirty and beat up David was treating it as though it were precious, she realised that he was because it was precious to her. She found herself automatically moving closer to him in response.

David’s smile softened into one of wonder, he knew it was a very small gesture, but he was hoping it was a sign that she was going to start trusting him. He carried her into the store and was able to sit her in the child seat, and although he was happier having her closer to him, but she really was tiny to be able to fit in the child seat with space left for her to wiggle around. “Here, kiddo, you can use my jacket to keep warm, it can go over your cast too.” He wrapped it around her being very careful of her arm. “I don’t think I’ve seen a cast as yellow as yours before.” He said setting off to get her prescriptions filled.

Emma smiled shyly. The jacket around her smelt faintly like coffee and the cologne which she only just realised David must have been wearing, it was comfortable and warm. She kept her arm cuddled close to her chest. “They let me choose what colour.” She told him watching the aisles go past as David walked with purpose.

“That’s cool, when I was younger me and my brother both had white ones, I think I’d choose red or green.”

“Red and yellow are my favourite colours.”

“Those are cool colours, I like red too, but I think your yellow cast is the best I’ve seen. Maybe we can decorate it with drawings and stickers, if you’d like?” David watched her nod and snuggle the jacket closer around her. At the pharmacy he got all her prescriptions filled for inhalers (with the spacers), pain relief for her arm which Emma was happy to see was , and PediaSure of which the doctor had given them plenty in order to try and increase her growth.

“How about we pick you out a new toothbrush then we’ll zoom these to the car then we can make sure they don’t get lost in the bags of clothes and stuff?” He said, it wasn’t really a question but he phrased it as such to make her feel included, and she nodded. He grabbed a few toothbrushes which said they’d be for her age and held the three electrical ones out to her. “Which one do you like best? There’s a Trolls one, Paw Patrol, or one which is like a crayon and you can decorate it with little stickers?”

Emma debated for a moment, usually she was given just a very cheap one from a multipack, often it wasn’t even one meant to be for children’s teeth. “The crayon one please.”

“Of course,” David smiled, “blue or pink?” He watched her pull an involuntary face at the pink one and chuckled. “Pink’s a no then. I’ll get you a blue one, then, and I’ll get Alice a pink one, ‘cause she’ll think yours is really cool.” He took them, along with some other bits such as chewy multivitamins, vapour rub, and some nutrition snack bars for both Emma and Alice (the latter because she was always on the go), to the checkout and payed.

 

 

* * *

Back at the car he was placing Emma’s medicine’s into his backpack when he became very aware of her wheezing from where she sat in the cart. He unpacked the inhaler and spacer from the boxes. He had had childhood asthma so he could remember how to use these expertly. He gave her a reassuring look. “Let’s just do this and you’ll feel a little better, Em, then we can get some more shopping done.”

Emma hadn’t realised how scared she was feeling when her chest had tightened until she saw David’s reassuring look and heard his reassuring tone. She let him place the mask of the spacer over her face, and when he pressed the inhaler the aerosol medicine filled the spacer, she wasn’t used to having help with this, but her chest lightened as David encouraged her to count to ten with him before repeating it.

David ran his hand through her wild curls, being careful not to knock her hearing aids, as he looked her over. “Does that feel a little better?”

Emma nodded her head. “Thank you.”

“It’s no problem, Em, if your chest hurts a lot and you feel like that you tell me and I’ll be able to help you, okay? You’ll never be in trouble for asking for help, ever, I promise, especially if it’s because you feel poorly.” He waited for her to nod but he could see she was feeling awkward so he let it drop for now.

 

* * *

He pushed the cart back into the store, and headed towards the clothes section, he came to a stop and pulled out the list he had written that morning. “Do you wanna keep hold of this list for me? Matilda said your good at reading, but I’m not sure if you’ll be able to read my handwriting.”

Emma took hold of it. “Why do you use all big letters?”

“Erm, I’m not sure… I think it’s because I have to make sure that when I’m working people can read what I’ve written, if it’s wrong it could be dangerous.” He explained, he had never really thought about it before, if truth be told.

Emma nodded her head acceptingly. “In stories they use all big letters to make people shout.”

“You’re right they do. That’s very clever of you to know.” He realised that she was starting to make conversation on her own and was a little surprised, Matilda had told him it took a lot of effort to get her to open up (according to her file), but he had just treated her with basic kindness and she was acting as though he were spoiling her with affection. He was a little cautious of overwhelming her, he knew when they were all home it would be hard for her, he could only hope that she’d quickly adapt to his family being loving, caring, and attentive. “What’s first on the list?”

“Jeans.” Emma read and they set off.

“How about we play a game of favourites?” David asked as he found what looked to be a comfortable pair of jeans. “I know your favourite colours now, but you or I will say something like favourite type of pet and I’d say dog.” He explained placing the jeans into the cart.

“I like dogs best too, but I’ve never had one.”

“I had one when I was a kid, he was called Wilby, and he loved people a lot. What’s your favourite lunch time food?” He asked aware that he’d be making her some when they got home.

Emma thought for a moment. “Grilled cheese, or mac and cheese, or PB and J sandwiches.”

“I make the _best_ grilled cheeses in the world.” David claimed as he grabbed a slightly different style of jeans for her just in case she found those comfier. “They’re my favourite food too. What’s your favourite animal, not a pet one but a different one?”

“Dragons.”

“Dragons?” His mouth upturned in amusement. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dragon.”

“They’re just really good at hiding, when I’m bigger I’m going to find one. I love dinosaurs too, but they’re all gone now.” Her voice fell wishing she could see a dinosaur alive now. “I like lions and koalas too, but I’ve not seen ones in real life.”

“I think your hairs a little like a lion’s mane.” Her face lit up as she giggled and he found himself laughing too. “I like elephants, they’re very clever and remember lots of things.” He told her.

They got Emma a pack of underwear, undershirts to keep her warmer than she currently was, socks, a set of two types of pyjamas (one long and one short), slippers which looked like , a hoodie which would fit over her cast, a pair of slip on sneakers in a giraffe print with little ears.

As they went David gained new bits of information about Emma: she liked to do art and drawing, she was good at running, she had never been to so many places like zoos and aquariums and only gone to a park once when she had run away, her friend August was a little older than Alice and had been fostered though she wasn’t sure where, she hated vegetables and sea food but would eat a couple of different fruits, she had never celebrated a birthday, Christmas, or any other holiday, she had a sweet tooth, she had never owned a toy and had only had hand-me-downs to borrow, she hated pink and girly things which was what she had mostly had to wear, her favourite animated movies were Tangled and Treasure Planet, she was scared of clowns and adults (which broke his heart as he couldn’t imagine Alice ever feeling like that), she adored animals and dinosaurs she also loved space, she loved bright colours, she had never had a hot chocolate, she didn’t like kindergarten it was too noisy and busy, she didn’t like her hearing aids because they would only hear some things (he made a mental note to get her hearing rechecked and new hearing aids), she wanted to have a dog one day, she liked pirates, and she hated the taste of water.

In return David told her information about him and her new foster family. And he found himself falling a little bit in love with her…  
He shook himself, he fell in love with every foster child, and he knew it was only increased with how alike Alice she was – maybe not in everything she liked and disliked, but in her personality.

He debated buying her a new backpack that day instead of waiting until tomorrow, mostly as he was worried the blue one was about to disintegrate in his hands and make whatever was so precious inside of it fall out and possibly break. But he decided to wake until the next day, he didn’t want it to seem as though he was trying to get rid of her straight away, and he worried that it may encourage her to leave or runaway which she would hopefully be less likely to do after getting settled that night.

 

* * *

Eventually they made it to the toy section, David came to a stop and tuck in Emma in front of him, and how sleepy she was starting to look from her long and emotionally exhausting day and from being sick. “We’re going to get you some more toys tomorrow, but I thought you might like to get a few toys today,” he made sure not to phrase that too much as a question as he knew that she didn’t want to push her luck, “that way we can play after lunch time before Kian, Mary, and Alice gets home.”

“Really?” She asked as though David was about to play a cruel trick.

“Of course.” He placed his hand lovingly on her head. “Let’s get you out of there so you can choose.” He watched her face fall as he moved his jacket from her as he lifted her out, so he started to distract her by showing her the different toys.

Emma automatically shied away from toys costing more than $5’s, though it was hard to keep her eyes of some things, and she thought that she was being subtle until David crouched in front of her.

“Emma, you don’t have to look at prices, at all, okay? You just find things that you like which aren’t really little and which look fun to play with today, then you show me and I’ll put them into the cart, okay?”

“I don’t know what types I like.” Emma admitted, fidgeting in front of him.

David sighed gently. “That’s okay, it’s okay not to know things, how about I help you look for things I think you might like? Then we can test them today and see what sort of things we should look at getting you tomorrow.”

Emma smiled gently and took hold of his hand. “Thank you David.”

David quickly kissed the top of her head as he stood up again, he kept hold of her hand as the pair looked at the toys.

 First into the cart was a Tangled doll of a toddler Rapunzel, that one was fairly easy as they already knew Emma liked Tangled, and David told her that there were some accessories and things she could use to play with the doll back at their home.

Next came a set of Lego Friends set, something called a mission vehicle, he remembered playing with it plenty when he was a kid and promised to help her build the things knowing it’d be harder with her arm in a cast and having never done it before.

David spotted and placed in a ‘my first daily calendar’ into the cart, it was wooden and brightly coloured and Emma could change the date, the season, temperature, weather, activities, and most importantly how she was feeling. “This doesn’t count as one of your toys because it’ll be part of making your bedroom feel more homely,” he told her, “you can change the things on your own or one of us can help you.”

David spotted a tub of Crayola things: chalk, crayons, stickers, pencils, clay, and pens and walked over to grab it, leaving Emma only a few feet away but holding onto the cart, when he spotted some colouring books and sketch books as well. He grabbed some for Emma and some for Alice, he placed them into the cart but Emma stayed staring at the shelves.

He realised suddenly that she was staring at the shelves of Fur Real friends above her head. “Those look really cool,” he followed her gaze to a blue dragon one, “here let’s give you a better look.” He picked her back up into his arms giving her plenty of notice but she didn’t shy away. He let her stare at them quietly for a minute. “Which one do you like?”

Emma had been staring at two very different ones, obviously the bigger steam breathing dragon, but there were also smaller ones, including a little koala with a juice box. She decided to tell him about the smaller, slightly cheaper, one. She pointed to it and David moved closer letting her stroke the soft fur over the mechanic body. “I like this.”

David looked closely at it, his smile didn’t waver, picking it up to read it. “Aw this koala’s poorly just like you are.” He cooed.

“Really?” She asked excitedly.

“Uh huh, and it’s one of your favourite animals, it must be fate.” He matched her excitement. “Can you choose one for Alice too? I think she’d love to play with them with you.”

Emma agreed, feeling a little nervous at meeting Alice, sometimes foster siblings were meaning than foster parents, she didn’t want to start off on bad footing with her or make her feel as though she was taking Alice’s parents’ attentions away from her. She stared at all of them but her eyes kept going back to a ginger kitten who played peek-a-boo and fed from a toy fish. “Would she like that one?” She asked, toying nervously with her hearing aids, careful not to knock the settings.

David followed her gaze and realised it was the kitten she was talking about. “I think that one’s perfect. Alice has a big unicorn one already so that kitten can join it.” He placed the kitten and koala into the cart before reaching up and picking up one of the dragon toys Emma had been starry eyed over, he placed it straight into the cart. “And now you’ll have two too.”

Emma’s mouth dropped. “Real- Are- Are you sure?” She stammered.

David looked down at her as though it wasn’t a big deal. “I’m certain Emma. Now you’re going to have your very own baby dragon!”

David’s excitement was infectious and Emma sat in the cart seat with David’s jacket wrapped around her staring back at the box with the dragon in.

David stopped at the soft toys. Alice had a bunny rabbit she had had since she was born. Kian had found it when he had run out for supplies, it was missing half an ear and it had been sewn up by Mary several time, but she still slept with it a decade later. A plush toy caught his eyes, a green Diplodocus, similar to the one on Emma’s shirt. He picked it up and slipped it into the cart without her realising.

He paused for a second before continuing, he couldn’t help but think he was missing something, he tried to think about everything Alice had at Emma’s age but just couldn’t remember it all.

 

* * *

He carried on towards the checkout, he knew that if he remembered it by the next day they’d be able to get it at another store. He piled up clothes, shoes, and toys onto the conveyor and watched Emma start to fiddle with her ears, he was starting to pick up on her tells and he realised that the price going up was making her nervous. He asked the person working the till to scan the dinosaur soft toy so Emma would be able to hold it, the young girl obliged happily, and David took the tags off and dropped them into one of his shopping bags before tapping Emma’s shoulder.  
“I found this dinosaur who needs a home, I thought he’d have a good one with you, because you’re a dino expert.”

“Is he poorly like me and the koala too?”

David found himself pausing, that was the closest to her actual age she had sounded since he had met her, he resisted kissing her head again and instead subtly took her temperature with his hand. “Y’know I thin he might be, I think we’ll have to get him to feel better.”

Emma smiled up at him and cuddled her teddy to her chest. This dinosaur was definitely worthy to go into her backpack of precious things, whenever it was that she was next moved.

David made small talk with the checkout worker, having successfully distracted his foster daughter with her new teddy. He paid without even looking at the price, he didn’t need to.

 

* * *

 

With the bags in his cart he pushed it out of the store and to his SUV where he started to load the trunk up with the red bags. He helped Emma out of the cart and held her hand still looking at the open trunk. “Do you want to leave your backpack in here or in the car next to you?”

Emma bit her lip ready to say she’d keep it with her. “It can stay with yours.” She said instead and was rewarded with another smile.

They put the cart back together and soon David was strapping her into the borrowed carseat again, but this time Emma was clutching onto her new teddy and she seemed to be much, much closer to him than earlier on.

“Thank you David.” Emma said quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad you all seem to be liking this! The next chapter we'll see Emma finally getting to see her new foster home, then the chapter after Kian, Mary, and Alice will finally get to meet her!


	6. Emma's new home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has taken so long, I've been creatively blocked (though my notebook for this fic looks amazing with all the planning its got for later chapters I must admit). The next chapter will be up within the next couple of weeks as I have to pack and move this weekend and then retake a piece of coursework so I can graduate by the end of this month (plus probably play the new Sims game). 
> 
> Send me an ask (anon or not) on Tumblr giving me oneshot prompts or things you wanna see in my longer ones : loboselinaistrash.tumblr.com   
> Or comment on here on on the fic of your choice prompts for that fic (as many as you like) to try and get me out of this block.

Emma had fallen asleep not long after they had left the Target car park, but when she open her eyes again they were clearly out of the city, she looked around in wonder at all of the green grass, trees, and big houses in the neighbourhood. She rubbed her eyes with her fist trying to wake herself up, and she quickly saved her brontosaurus from falling off of her carseat.

“Hey sleepyhead,” David’s spotted her little eyes opening, “we’re nearly home now.”

“Okay.” Emma yawned, she felt her stomach twist thinking about heading to yet another home and having to meet yet another foster family, knowing that she would soon be moved again.   
She toyed with her ears as she did whenever she was nervous, her fingers brushed on the cracked plastic of the aid, they were old, too small, and broken but they were a constant. She watched the houses becoming more spread out and further back from the road, the houses seemed to be even bigger, David turned left around the corner and she could just about make out a forest behind these houses. She wondered for a moment if it was a magical forest, like the ones she saw in story books, but she doubted it. She had her eyes glued to the window watching all of the massive houses, her awe only grew the longer they travelled, as she watched she turned the volume on her hearing aids up as she realised the music was a lot quieter as the sounds returned to the right volume she realised David was watching her in the mirror. He looked as though he might have said something but Emma wasn’t sure, she waited to see if he repeated himself.

He did. “This is our street now, our house is going to be out of your window in a second, Emma. See if you can guess which one.” He said it with a smile but he wondered if there was a reason why she hadn’t responded when he said it the first time. He hadn’t seen her hearing aids yet but he knew she had them, perhaps they were broken, or she might have just knocked the hearing aid in her sleep. He supposed that she might have just been ignoring him, but the child was hyperaware, he could tell she spotted every movement and was constantly trying to figure out if she was in danger. It was like she was always in flight or fight mode.

“Out my window now?” She asked as another car passed by.

“Nearly, kiddo,” he said in an encouraging way, “it’s this one on the corner.” He pulled the car into the driveway of the house they had bought a few months before.

The dark grey house was huge. There seemed to be, in Emma’s view, a hundred windows. There was a huge front lawn, as they drove up the drive she saw how big the house was from the side, with the three garage doors Emma assumed were all for the cars.

David parked his car in front of one of the garage doors and turned back to look at Emma who was being very quiet. He saw her wide eyes and realised that this was probably the biggest house she had ever seen, the only place she had been to outside of the city, the same as Alice had been when they had moved there, that time he had just gotten out of hospital after being shot. He smiled gently at the bittersweet memory and at the sight in front of him. “How about we get you out of that carseat and grab those bags out of the trunk and I’ll show you around your new home?”

Emma slowly nodded, she liked that he was at least telling her what was going to happen at the different steps, though she was expecting to get lost in the house as it was so big.

David climbed out of his seat, feeling a twinge in his shoulder as he moved, he opened up the door and undid the straps of Emma’s car seat, he knew it was quite a jump down so he lifted her down. “Does your dinosaur have a name yet?” He asked brightly.

Emma bit her lip and tilted her head to the side. “I don’t know yet…. I need a perfect one.”

“Ah, of course.” He gently placed his hand on the top of her head as he went to the trunk to grab all of the bags. He went to pick one up with bags with his left hand and let out a hiss of pain which he tried to hide. Emma was suddenly at his side.

“Can I carry one?”

David smiled gently at her request to help, he was trying to make sure she knew that it wasn’t expected of her in the same way it would have been in her past, he quickly scanned the bags for a really light one. “How about you carry the one with your jammies and the koala and kitten in?” He suggested passing it over to her. “Be careful you don’t knock your arm, kiddo, I’ll give you some medicine for it when we have our lunch.”

Emma frowned a little, she thought that she had hid the pain, but he somehow spotted it. She watched him pick up all the bags, including both of their backpacks, she kept an eye on hers but he was still treating it carefully. She stayed at his side as he led the way down the path leading to the front of the house and the front door. She stepped up the one step to the front door and watched David unlock the front door.

They came to a porch with three pairs of muddied wellington boots and a couple of umbrellas. David shut the door behind them and unlocked the other one letting Emma into the hallway. He placed the bags down onto a bench inside. “So, this is it.” He said awkwardly. “We can unpack those bags a little later.” He watched her placing her bag to join the others. “Do you wanna sit down for a while, or I could show you around now before we have lunch?”

Emma barely registered the question as she looked around the giant hallway. The floor was dark brown in colour with a long brightly coloured rug, and the walls were all white, there were a few cabinets made of the same wood as the floor. There were some framed photos around, she spotted David in some of them, including in a big framed photograph on the shelf above the white and cushioned bench which had boxes underneath, full of various shoes. In the photo he was with three other people, two adults and a girl a little older than she was, she supposed that they were her new foster family. They had kind smiles, but she was well aware that looks could be deceiving, she had been burnt before.

David took in in her look of awe and crouched down in front of her smiling gently. “How about I show you around.” He gave her an understanding smile. He knew the house was fairly big, it was a bit overwhelming on its own, let alone with everything else Emma was going through. “I’ll show you the main rooms, so that you don’t get lost, if you like you can explore later on after lunch.”

Emma nodded her head once, she would feel a bit better knowing a bit about the house she was currently in, she liked to know where she could hide if she needed to. She kept hold of her dino as David stood back up. She followed him as he started the tour.

 

* * *

 

 

The first stop was a living room, with two couches facing each other.

“This is the smaller living room.” He said smiling at the framed picture of himself, his wife, and his husband on the fireplace mantel.

“Is this one for adults?” Emma asked quietly. She had only been in one home as big as this one seemed to be, and she had gotten into a lot of trouble for not understanding that there were separate restrictions on where adult could go and where children could, this time she was not taking any chances.

David frowned instinctively, but quickly hid it, not wanting Emma to get the wrong idea. “No, kiddo, you can go anywhere in the house unless we tell you can’t because somewhere is dangerous. You don’t have to be scared here.” He told her but he knew that to her it would just sound like an empty promise. “This one’s usually quieter as we have the corner couch and bigger tv in the other room.”

“Bigger?” Emma eyed the tv which she already thought was already fairly big where it hung above the fireplace, she heard David laugh and she was soon led into the room across from that living room and into another. She realised now why he had laughed.

This room was bigger with a bigger tv, like the other room it was in a cream sort of colour, and the couch was light in colour like the previous ones in the other room only this one was a large corner couch not two separate ones. It had throws tossed onto the back and a mismatch of cushions around. There was a large glass coffee table, between the couch and the fireplace, with a sparkly sequined pink converse underneath, Emma wondered if David had spotted that or not and if Alice would be in trouble.

“If you get lost or need one of us then one of us is normally in here or in the kitchen.” David assured her, he knew that the house was big and it would be easy for anyone to get lost, especially someone so small. He gave her a few minutes to walk around and explore the room but she stood still by his side as though scared to walk about. He knew that it would take time but that didn’t mean that he didn’t absolutely hate the fact she was scared to even move. “This is probably the tidiest this place has ever been.” He laughed. Emma didn’t laugh back. David led her out of the room as they continued the tour, pointing out the downstairs bathroom, and a couple of other things.

Emma’s eyes grew wide as she saw the massive kitchen and dining room, it was light and bright, with a big table and a huge fridge. She always looked at the fridges in new foster homes, the outside always hinted at how much food would be inside of it, this one was massive with magnets of different types covering it. She always looked at the fridge and cupboards when she went to a new place, more often than not there were locks on the fridge and cupboard doors, to stop her and the rest of the foster kids from eating the food. This kitchen had no locks on any of the doors. She paused as David moved forward telling her that they usually ate at the dining table but there was also the island, and if they were having a movie night they ate on the couch, he stopped and looked back as he saw Emma stood still by the island. He stopped and crouched down in front of her. “What’s up Emma?” He followed her gaze to the fridge and the cupboards. “You probably won’t be able to reach the fridge and the high up cupboards, but all you have to do is tell me, or Mary, or Kian and one of us will get you something to eat.”

Emma nodded her head but looked sceptical. “Sure.”

David sighed gently. “Emma, I want you to understand that food isn’t a punishment or reward, you don’t have to be extra good to get it, everyone deserves food. You can have it anytime you like, and we’ll make sure that you can get to it, I even got you some special treats just for you at the store, but we can get you some more when we go grocery shopping, then you can show us all the things you like.”

Emma’s brow furrowed slightly. Of course food, or lack of food, was used as a punishment, David clearly didn’t know what he was talking about but she would take advantage of putting aside some snacks in her backpack so she would be able to survive. “Okay Mr Charming.”

David nodded slowly, she was fairly convincing, but there was something in her eyes which reminded him of the way he and his brother used to look. He mentally shook himself, he hadn’t thought about his life with his step-father in so long, he wasn’t about to do with when there was a scared little kid there. “Just call me David, kiddo, remember? Or Dave, or Davey, whatever you feel comfortable doing, ‘kay?”

“ ‘Kay… Davey.”

David grinned, it was usually what Ian called him to try and wind him up, but it was cute coming from her.

He led her out of the kitchen and showed her the downstairs bathroom, promising to pick up a step for her when he realised that she was much too small to reach the sink. There were some empty rooms which they weren’t sure what to do with, and an alcove with a staircase down which David told her was just the laundry room and a surprise which was being finished. There was even a playroom, with a long desk and desktop computer which David told her had some games, there was a toybox of stuff and a play kitchen and David told her that there would be more toys ending up in there and that she was free to play with any of them, and that they didn’t have to just stay in that room.

“I think I know what your favourite room is going to be.” David told her placing his hand gently on the top of her head as he steered her back to the living room they had first been in.

“This is…. Cool.” Emma said, and it was cool, but she had already been shown it, and after seeing all of the other equally cool rooms it was a little underwhelming to see this one again even if it was otherwise impressive.

David grinned knowing what she was thinking. But he led her other to the bookcase. “If you push in this cool looking book here something will happen.” He could have kicked himself when he saw her look worried, that was the wrong thing to say to someone who had only just been moved out of an abusive home. “A good thing, I promise, Ems.”

Emma went to use her broken arm like usual before she remembered that it was broken. She pressed a large black book with golden writing, it was a fact book about…. The history of hidden rooms. She pressed it then quickly took a step back, leaning against David’s legs, as the bookcase moved and became a doorway for a hidden room.

“This is my, Kian, and Mary’s office, but you and Alice are allowed in here too, my favourite thing is the window seat. You can go explore it.”

Emma for once was not reluctant, as although there were desks with difference work things on for each other her new foster parents, the room was more than just an office, it was completely lined with bookcases, from floor to ceiling, even over doors.

“There’s another doorway on the other side which leads to one of the spare rooms, you just have to press the same book for that one.” David told her as she walked around, her eyes were wide with wonder as she found the cushioned window seat which looked out over their backyard and the forest beyond it.

“I love it.”

David beamed. It was a simple statement but Emma had made it without any encouragement. He suddenly imagined working in here with his spouses, Alice doing her artwork at the spare desk, and Emma reading in the window seat. He shook his head. He knew that the image of Emma was just in place until they got the new baby, he was sure that they would be perfect in their family, and Emma would find her own.

Emma walked over to the window seat and tried to climb up but the cast on her arm it was nearly impossible. She felt herself being lifted up and placed up on the window seat. She looked up at David who looked panicked as though he had done something wrong, but she just smiled at him. “Thank you.”

“No problem at all, kid, just let me know if you need any help.” David grinned and smiled back, he ruffled her hair as she turned to look out of the window, she looked at the forest with such wonder David couldn’t stop smiling.

“Is there a candy house in there?” Emma asked before she could stop herself.

David paused. “I don’t know, maybe there is, we could all go explore the woods one day and see if we can find the witches house. We’ll have to wait until you’re feeling better, okay Emma?”

Emma nodded her head. She was a little surprised that he hadn’t just told her not to be stupid, that Hansel and Gretel was just a story, she covered her mouth as she coughed and felt David rub her back to try and help her.

 

* * *

  
  


David eventually managed to persuade Emma to move away from the window seat and all of the books in the office to continue their brief tour. He frowned in concern as he led her up the stairs, he wasn’t sure whether to offer to carry her as he heard her wheezing, she seemed to be quite stubborn and said she was okay when he asked her if she needed any help. He gestured vaguely to the spare rooms and told her that there was another floor upstairs but that there wasn’t really anything there, just the attic.

“This is Alice’s room.” David pushed open the door with Alice’s name plaque on and let Emma see inside.

It was unlike any room she had ever seen. At first she thought that the walls were just brown but when David led her in so she could see it a little clearer she realised that there were little gold and pink clouds in rows. There was more pink in the room, her new foster sister seemed to be very girly, especially compared to her. There was some turquoise furniture – a bed and a chair in the corner adorned with throws, board games and books and books were piled high on the ladder bookshelf, and a few rugs on the wooden floor. There were photographs and art on the walls and above Alice’s artwork desk. But the pride in place in the room was a wooden swing seat hanging from the ceiling, cushions and blankets filling it, making it look particularly comfortable. Out of the big windows Emma caught sight of the city skyline and Emma felt a twinge of homesickness, she had never been quite so far from it before, she wondered if the city was as important to her foster sister, Alice, as it was to her.

David led her out quicker than he had the other rooms, wanting to leave showing the quirks of her room until Alice decided to show Emma it, so he ushered her into the room next door passing through the photograph filled hallway, showing her to the kid’s bathroom. “This is mostly the one you and Alice will probably use, it’s between Alice’s room and yours, but you can use any you like, kiddo.” He opened the door which was only half open.

Emma had never seen a bathroom so clean, which probably wasn’t saying much considering the places she had lived before, she suddenly worried that she wouldn’t be able to keep it clean enough for their standards. David seemed really, really nice, she didn’t want to disappoint him and she didn’t want to be kicked out of yet another home, before Matilda even had a chance to find her an adoptive family. She suddenly realised that David was talking and she had missed most of what he was saying.

David looked down at the little blonde haired girl blinking up at him looking lost. “Sorry, Emma, that was a lot to tell you in one go. You don’t have to remember all that in one go. There’s some lights in the hall which means you’ll be able to find your way here even at night, if you need to. There’s a step under the two sinks so you’ll be able to reach to wash your hands or brush your teeth. One of us, probably Mary, will be able to help you with the bath, especially with your poorly arm.” He smiled down at her seeing her still holding onto her dinosaur but realised that she was looking around for something. “There’s always plenty of soap, toothpaste, shower gel, toys,” he gestured to the bath tidy which had some bath toys, “toilet paper, towels… I think there’s some bath bombs around somewhere too.” he saw her still looking around for something and frowned in confusion. “What’s up, Emma?”

“Where are the cleaning things?” She asked before quickly adding “I promise I won’t ask again, I’ll remember so I can clean up.”

“Emma, you don’t have to clean up the bathroom, the bathroom cleaning things shouldn’t be touched by you or Alice as you’re both children.” He told her gently and calmly, though visions of Emma being forced to fully clean bathrooms with bleach would probably haunt his nightmares for a week.   
The worst parts of it was that this was probably one of the milder things which Emma had been forced to do, and that it had made her so worried that she was frantically trying to search them out from the second she came in.   
“You just need to clean up your toys a little after you’ve finished playing with them, and maybe a couple of small things like helping put a couple of the groceries away and stuff, nothing big or too much. You’re a kid, Emma, you get to relax and act like one now, I’m sorry that you haven’t been able to before.” He paused letting her check to see that he was being truthful, he had realised that she did that a lot, but if it made her feel better he’d pause after every word. “And I’m sure that when Matilda finds you a forever family they’ll keep on proving that to you.” He told her gently. He watched her look down and nod but she didn’t look back up at him. He felt like he had said something wrong but he wasn’t sure what. So he changed the conversation. “Hey, let’s show you your bedroom, huh?”

Emma’s bedroom was around the same size as Alice’s but was very different, it was more of a blank space than Alice’s was, instead of the colourful walls the walls were white, yet somehow not clinical. There was a bed with light blue sheets, a couple of pillows, and a dark blue blanket with stars on, there were a couple of thin white shelves with picture books on, there was a child size wooden rocking chair with a cushion matching the blue blanket, and there was a red minimal style rocking horse beside it. Emma wandered deeper into the room. There were two frames pictures on the wall opposite the bed and Emma walked closer to them, a sun was in one with the words ‘you are my sunshine’, in the other was a black cloud with rainbow raindrops falling from it and the words ‘you make me happy when skies are grey’. Emma thought that she had heard that song before, in an advertisement or something though, but had never actually heard it being sung. She walked over to the bed and felt the soft cotton bedding beneath her fingers, and the plush blue blanket, she smiled she didn’t think that she had ever felt such soft sheets. There was a huge window with a view of the forest and a window seat with cushions, and although the blinds were open, letting in the winter sun into the room, Emma could see that each one of the strips were painted a different colour making it look like a rainbow going down the window. “Woah.” Her voice was barely a whisper as she looked around the room.

David had been stood by the door letting Emma look around her new room by herself at first. He rubbed the back of his neck suddenly aware of how plain this room looked in comparison to the other ones, there wasn’t even a rug on the wooden floor yet, they were just planning on waiting to see what Emma liked and then they’d redecorate when the new baby was older. He could still barely believe that they would actually be adopting a baby, it was only Matilda promising that it was a sure thing that morning that made him even remember that it was going to be a real thing. He looked at Emma and felt a little bad that he was so excited for a new baby when Emma didn’t even have a family yet, but she would have one soon, Matilda had promised that too. He walked over to Emma whose eyes were wide as she looked around. He gently placed his hand on her back and quickly apologised for making her jump. “It’s all for you and there’s plenty of room for all of the new toys you’re going to have, but you can play with them downstairs too.” He added the last bit quickly he had a feeling that if he didn’t she would more than likely be discouraged from playing anywhere but in her room. “And this door is your closet.”   
He opened the white door and showed her inside, there were two levels of poles for clothes to be hung on the left and right but in the centre there were deep blue drawers on each was a simple white outline for the type of clothes to go in there.   
“We’ll be getting you some more clothes tomorrow, I think Mary will probably be able to fill this entire wardrobe the second she enters the first store.” David joked. Emma was quiet. “And we’ll look at stuff to decorate your room in your style.” He told her quickly.

Emma finally looked at him, her eyes wide, and barely able to keep her mouth from hanging open. “This is so cool.” She told him wholeheartedly and for once there was a sparkle in her eyes. “This is the best room I’ve ever had.”

David had grown up with not much, before his mother had remarried, but Emma had clearly had even less where a pretty basic room and a couple of toys and a change of clothes seemed to be the best things she had ever had. It broke his heart. He crouched down again, smiling at his foster daughter, he pushed a curl behind her ear. “I’m glad you like it, we’re going to make it even cooler by filling it with your stuff, I promise. You can pick out the things tomorrow morning and Kian and I can get it fixed up for you by bedtime tomorrow night.” His smile grew when she nodded her head. “Now, do you want to stay in here, or look around, or come with me while I fix us some lunch?”

Emma looked around the room for a second, she thought about perhaps exploring the house but she was a little worried that she would get lost or go into a room she wasn’t meant to, she winced as she got some feedback from her hearing aids. “I’ll go with you.” She decided rather quickly as she saw him from at her wince.

David smiled gently at her. “Okay, kiddo, we’ll get you some medicine with your lunch too.” He placed his hand on the top of the head as he led her out of the room, he was glad that she kept hold of her dinosaur toy. Once out of the room he pointed to the door at the end of the hallway. “That’s our bedroom, my, Kian, and Mary’s, if you need us in the middle of the night you can come get us.”

“… Can I see it?”

“Sure, buddy.” He led her there and opened the door.

“Woah, that’s huge.” Emma whispered in awe of the massive bed.

David let out a small chuckle, she was right it was huge, but that didn’t seem to stop both his husband and wife from kicking him during the night. “I suppose it is, isn’t it? Let’s get you some food. You can explore a bit more later if you like, I’m sure Alice will want to show you things I might have missed.”

 

* * *

 

Emma sat on one of the high stools at the kitchen island, across the counter her new foster father was stood at the electric hob making them both some lunch, she toyed with the tumbler of juice David had given to her. As she sat listening to the sizzling of the pan she examined David’s face carefully. Normally she would take in peoples’ faces and see all the frown lines, the unshaved faces, the bloodshot eyes, but David just had the start of 5 o’clock stubble, his hair was neatly cut even if it was a little wavy, his face was lightly lined and even that was by laughter and crinkles by his eyes from smiles and laughter.

“I, erm, my specialty is grilled cheeses, and pancakes, I’m not too good at most other things.” David admitted.

“Can you make cakes?”

David felt a little bad at how hopeful she sounded. “I’ve never really tried, Mary can though, I’m sure that she’d love to bake with you if you ask her.”

“I don’t know how to make them either.”

“Maybe you and I can figure it out together.” David grinned as he plated up their lunch, grilled cheese with a side of chips, he knew that both his husband and wife would be lecturing him about the nutritional value of the meal so he added some apple slices in a bowl to the tray. He helped Emma down from her stool and grabbed them both drinks from the fridge before leading her back into the main living room.

Emma waited to see where David was going to sit, on the floor or the couch, before sitting beside him, she was starting to feel exhausted from being sick and having to be on her guard around her new foster father, she just didn’t want to mess this up.

David frowned internally as he noticed that she was starting to look tired, he knew that six year olds didn’t usually have naps but she was a young six and she was sick so she could definitely do with one, the hard part would be getting her to take one. “Let’s get some medicine into you, kiddo.” He told her gently, he poured the bright yellow, banana flavoured, antibiotic medicine into the medicine spoon and held it up to her mouth, he saw her hesitancy. “Just one spoonful and then you can get rid of the flavour with your special milkshake.”

Emma reluctantly opened her mouth and let David feed it to her, she was pleasantly surprised when she tasted the candy banana taste, she swallowed it and smiled at David. “It’s banana!” She announced happily.

David grinned, happy to see her smile, and happy that it looked like it would be fairly easy to get her to take the medicine. “That’s awesome. Here’s your milkshake, buddy.” He uncapped one of the PediaSure milkshake bottles and handed it over to her. He watched her read the bottle, her head tilted the side. “It’s the same one you had at the hospital,” he smiled softly at her as he moved about the plates, putting hers closer to her and his to him, with apples in the middle of the tray, “it will just help you grow bigger.”

“This one’s my favourite flavour.” She said simply and the pair started to tuck into their grilled cheese and chips. She watched David flicking through the channels with the remote until he settled on The Princess and the Frog movie. “David?”

“Yeah, kid?”

“Is this like a picnic?”

David paused, the kid had been fairly quiet once they had started their meal, she was still looking sleepy, and he hoped that the movie would help her fall asleep. But he didn’t expect that, he suddenly realised that Emma probably hadn’t ever had a picnic. He forced a smile. “I suppose that it is, an inside one, it looks like your dinosaur is joining in too.” He nodded his head towards the dinosaur toy she had set down next to the apple slices. He smiled as she looked down and saw the dinosaur too. “When you’re a bit better we can all go out into the woods on an adventure and make a picnic.” He slowly reached out and brushed his hand through her hair, making sure it was slow enough not to alarm her, and he smiled as she lent her head against his hand slightly. “Let’s watch this movie, huh? It’s pretty good, I like Tiana.”

“I’ve not seen it before.” Emma admitted taking another bite of her triangle shaped grilled cheese, the three types of cheese oozed out, it was honestly the best one she had tasted before. Everything here seemed like a dream, David seemed so nice, the mansion was breathtaking, she couldn’t believe that she was actually there, albeit for a fairly short amount of time. She started to watch the movie as she slowly made her way through the meal.

David watched Emma closely while they ate and watched the movie, he helped her with the inhaler as she had a small coughing attack, but otherwise he stayed quiet to let just her settle in. When he next looked over at Emma he realised that her eyes were closed and her breathing had slowed slightly. He smiled to himself, she looked much more peaceful, and younger, much younger, now that she was unguarded. “God,” he whispered to the sleeping little girl, “Kian and Mary are going to love you.” He moved the tray with the food on from the couch onto the coffee table and crouched in front of Emma’s chair. He gently placed his hands on her shoulders and slowly moved her so that she was led down, her dinosaur toy had been tucked under her arm so he made sure that it still was, and he moved her yellow cast so it was on her stomach so that it was resting and not likely to get hurt again. He pulled a warm throw from the back of the couch and tucked it around her, he checked her temperature with the back of his hand, then took out the dishes from their meal.

He didn’t want to be too far from Emma as she was sleeping so he grabbed the bags which had been left on the bench in the hallway, including his backpack, and brought them into the lounge before reclaiming his place on the couch close to his sleeping charge. He placed the bags on the floor next to his feet and grabbed Emma’s file from his backpack and set about the hard job of reading through it.

 

* * *

  
  


Emma woke up feeling just as disorientated as she usually was, she was used to waking up in places she hadn’t been before, and after being in the hospital for so long she wasn’t used to waking up somewhere different but also nicer than most of the places she had been.

“Hey Em.”

She heard David’s voice before she saw him, she sat up tangled up in a blanket, and saw him smiling down at her as he sat on the couch beside her with a pen and paper. “I feel asleep.” She said stating the obvious, she hadn’t meant to, she normally barley slept at all the first night in a new house, she didn’t get how she had even fallen asleep.

“That’s okay,” David said as though it wasn’t a big deal, “naps are cool, and you’re sick so your body needs lots of sleep and naps. When my arm was getting better I had lots and lots of naps.”

Emma relaxed a little, David seemed to be so calm and relaxed about everything, she was just waiting for that point where it was too much. “Do you still need them now?” She asked sitting up.

David grinned putting down his list. “I do still sometimes, I think it’ll take us both a little while to get all better huh?” He took her in. “How are you feeling now?”

“I’m okay.” Emma replied straight away.

“Hmm, Okay.” David didn’t believe her in the slightest but he knew it would be a while before she could have more medicine so he let that one go. He passed her back over her milkshake having heard how sore her throat sounded. As he waited for her to drink it he couldn’t help but think of all of the things he had read about in the file, how could someone be so young and have gone through so much? And how much more had happened but hadn’t made them into her file? He plastered on a smile as she finished the milkshake and looked at him. “So, how about we check out some of your toys?”

“Okay.” Emma gave a little shrug and climbed off of the couch with her dinosaur under her arm and started to head towards the room David had shown her earlier.

“Emma, it’s okay your toys are here.” He saw her looking conflicted as though very confused. “Remember I told you earlier that you don’t have to just play in your room or in the playroom, this is a home where it’s okay that it’s a bit messy sometimes, we want you to feel at home too.” He said gently as he lowered himself onto the ground. He reached into the Target bags and pulled out Emma’s toys one by one, by the time he got to the Lego set Emma had sat on the ground to join him. “What shall we play with first?” He asked with a kind smile.

Emma tilted her head to the side a little and twitched her mouth as she thought. She looked at all of the toys David had gotten her: the dragon and koala toys, the Rapunzel doll, the big tub of crayola art stuff, finally her eyes settled upon the Lego set. She gently touched the box and looked up to David’s face without meeting his eyes, she had a slightly sheepish look on her face.

“Good choice, I used to love Lego’s when I was a kid.” He praised and was rewarded with her looking briefly into his eyes and smiling at him before looking back down at the box. It was progress. He opened the cardboard box and pulled out the plastic bags of Lego pieces. “Can you read what we’re going to be building for me? It’s on the front of the box there.”

Emma picked up the cardboard box, looked at the picture of what it would look like, she looked at the words and sounded them out loud, she was better at reading in her head. ‘“Mission vehicle.’... I don’t know how to…” she trailed off a little.

David looked over and saw that she meant that she wasn’t sure how to pronounce the name. “Olivia.” He told her with a proud smile. “That’s a tricky one, that was really good Emma, you’re very clever kiddo.”

Emma smiled and moved a little closer at his praise. “Thanks.” She said sheepishly.

“Come on let’s build.” David encouraged enthusiastically and started to lead her in the instructions.  

Once the toy was built they started to play, David explained that Olivia drove around rescuing animals and Emma grew rather enthusiastic. After a while he saw her looking longingly at her other new toys. “Emma,” he told her gently making sure that she was listening, “all of these toys are yours forever, no matter what, you get to keep them even when Matilda finds your forever home for you. You can play with them as much as you want.”

Emma looked up into David’s blue eyes and saw him imploring her to believe him, and she did, so she nodded.

David beamed. “Okay, let’s have a look at some of these then, huh?” He grinned.

The two started to play with all of the toys, Emma gaining her confidence the longer the played, and she started from toy to toy, David was glad to see her coming out of her shell a little. That was until they both heard the sound of the front door opening, David glanced at his watched and realised that the rest of his family was home now, he had been having so much fun he had lost track of time, he had been planning on warning Emma before they had got there that they were nearly home. Emma quickly darted towards him with her dinosaur and wrapped herself around his arm absolutely terrified.

‘Crap.’ He thought.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Send me an ask (anon or not) on Tumblr giving me oneshot prompts or things you wanna see in my longer ones : loboselinaistrash.tumblr.com   
> Or comment on here on on the fic of your choice prompts for that fic (as many as you like) to try and get me out of this block.
> 
> (I'll reply to them after I've gone to the theatre later)


	7. Midnight Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kian, Alice, and Mary meet Emma for the first time. And the adult's sleep is disturbed by something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow this update has been a long time coming, I hope y'all like it!
> 
> As always, tw for all forms of abuse, especially physical and sexual in this chapter. Also as always Leopold is an absolute wanker.

Mary and Kian managed to keep Alice behind them as they walked into the house, they figured that David and Emma would be either in the main living room or in the kitchen. As soon as Alice had walked into Mary’s classroom she had been fizzing with excitement and that wasn’t stopping now, if anything it was increasing, they were trying to keep her calm so not to scare Emma, but they had to admit it was sweet to see her so happy and excited. They explained that she had to be calm as Emma would probably be scared and nervous being in a new place, but as much as she tried Alice was just a naturally exciteable child.

“Alice, don’t just throw your bag down on the ground, the bench is right there.” Kian chided out of habit, Alice always seemed to just dump everything on the floor when she got home from school, usually she would stop and pick it up, but today she just skidded past Mary and threw open the door of the lounge. He sighed and picked her bag up for her. 

“Alice!” Mary called after her, but the child didn’t slow or calm, Mary sighed too. 

“I’ll be okay, dear.” Kain soothed. “Dave’s there, he’ll protect the kid from tornado Alice.” He pushed a strand of her hair back into its place and kissed her crown before following their boisterous child. 

 

* * *

 

Emma didn’t understand why she was hiding against David, she had only just met him, but he was slightly more familiar to her than the loud noise and voices coming from the hall and heading closer. 

“It’ okay, Emma,” David soothed quietly, “it’s just Alice, Mary, and Ki, they’ve just finished school and work, I didn’t realise it was this late. I’m sorry I was going to let you know when they’d be home soon.” He realised he was rambling and that she probably wasn’t even listening and didn’t know what he was saying. “It’s going to be okay.” He soothed again simply.

Alice came through the living room door with a huge grin on her face, it was only when she was right in front of her dad and her new foster sister that she finally stopped, Emma was so hidden against David that it was hard to see her face, so she looked at her father in confusion. 

“Hey Al,” David’s warm voice filled the room as he rubbed Emma’s back, “you have paint on your face, Princess.” He chuckled, but the sight was relieving, especially after she had been worried about being too weird earlier that day, it was just so normal on such an abnormal day. 

Alice shrugged her shoulders her eyes on Emma who was moving a little away from David now. “We had art class today.” 

“That’s cool, did you do anything fun?” He asked continuing normal conversation to lull Emma. “You got any homework?” He added knowing that Alice would usually just forget. 

“Just some maths, and my project but mommy said you could all help me at the weekend.” She looked at David as she spoke but as soon as she saw that Emma was no longer hiding and instead looking at her and her parents stood behind her, Alice cracked a huge smile. “Hi! I’m Alice, I’m your new foster sister, I’m ten, Daddy said you’re six but you don’t look it…”

“I’m six.” Emma said firmly, she didn’t think that Alice meant to say anything in a mean way, she really did seem to be genuinely happy to see her there, but at the moment she was just trying to figure out how much of a threat the two other foster parents would be.

Alice just smiled. “That’s cool, I’m the third smallest in my class too, Daddy says I’ll grow soon but I’ve not yet and I’m not eating greens to make me grow.” She pulled a face at the idea of having to eat greens and saw a hint of the same look on Emma’s face.

David let out a bark of laughter. “Emma, this is Alice, your new foster sister, I told you about.” He told her gently wanting to give a formal introduction in case Emma had forgotten the names. He smiled over at Mary and Kian and nodded slightly, so they stepped forward and crouched down a short distance from Emma and David as Alice started to look at Emma’s new toys without touching them. 

“And these are my husband and wife, your new foster dad and mom, Kian and Mary.”

“Hello Emma, I’m Kian.” His voice was low and melodic. “You can call me Kian or Ki, like a key, Alice calls me Papa so if you hear her saying that she means me.” He held out his hand and Emma feebly shook it. 

The mix of his english and irish twang standing out firmly against all the american ones and it was new to Emma’s ears, Alice seemed to copy his ways of saying things sometimes, she realised. She quite liked it, it was soothing, in a way she hadn’t heard before. 

Mary spoke next. “I like your dinosaur.” 

“D-Davey got it for me.” She clutched it closer to her chest suddenly, fearing it would be taken. 

“It looks very nice,” Mary said smiling with just as much softness as she spoke, “it’s a longneck, right? There’s a movie with a dinosaur like your one in it that came out when I was about your age, I used to watch it, I think we have a copy here maybe we could watch it.” 

Emma stared at the women, she reminded her a little of Matilda she seemed to be good and honest, and that she was going to try her best, but Emma knew that that didn’t always work out. She nodded her head shyly. “Please.” She squeaked out. 

Mary smiled warmly. “Sure. I know David’s told you, but my name’s Mary.” 

“Hi.” Emma said sheepishly. She fidgeted out of nerves not sure what to say or do, but she didn’t feel quite so worried or scared anymore. 

“Hey, Princess,” David directed to Alice, “let’s go grab you and Emma a snack, huh?” He placed his hand on Alice’s shoulder and started to shepherd her out of the room. He felt Emma’s eyes on him and could practically feel her panic about him leaving. “We’ll be back in a minute, I swear, why don’t you show Ki and Mare your new toys?”

 

* * *

 

Emma watched him walk out of the room until she could no longer see him. She looked away from the empty doorway and down at her new toys. Her hand went to toy with her hearing aids, stroking the crack down the right one, avoiding their eyes. 

Kian frowned seeing the tech on her ears, it looked as though she had been given the cheapest ones anyone could find several years ago and they had not bothered with anything to do with them since. Robin was constantly having Kian into his family’s tech company to get him the latest tech for his hand, or lack of hand. But he remembered the ill fitting prosthetics he had throughout his own childhood, when he had no one to help him get better ones, it was mostly charities to even get him new prosthetics once he had moved to The States where there wasn’t any free healthcare. 

“Hey, we match.” He joked softly, he wiggled the fingers of his black prosthetic, capturing her attention. 

Emma stared down at it moving, the movements were slightly stiffer than biological hands, but otherwise it was hard to tell that it was a prosthetic. “Is that really fake?”

Mary knew that that word was always a sore spot for Kian, he had gotten a lot of grief throughout his life about having a prosthetic, she knew that the words always cut deep and echoed his past. So she was a little surprised when Kian just laughed quietly in the same way that he did when Alice said something she shouldn’t or did something silly. 

“It’s a prosthetic love,” Kain told her gently, “but it acts like a hand, Robin, he’s erm he’s Mary’s family,” he was not about to go down that wormhole in trying to explain to her Mary’s family, “well, his family make really cool things like this, it works just like a real one and has some cool tech extras.” He pressed a certain part and it lit up gently showing some of the other buttons. 

“Whoa,” Emma breathed out staring at the hand, her own hand left her archaic hearing aids as she was distracted, “that’s so cool.”

Kian grinned down at the little girl, she genuinely seemed to love his hand and be interested in it, she was a whole lot smaller than he had expected but she seemed to be able to make up with that with her voice, he had a feeling that she was being quiet now but she had a whole lot inside of her to come out. “Thanks, I think it’s cool too.”

Emma gave him a small smile then looked at Mary somewhat shyly. “Do you teach Alice in your class?”

“Nope, she’s in the other class in my year, but it means I get to see her a lot which makes me happy.” She smiled and started to move about some of the Legos and was happy when Emma joined in. “I have a day off every week, so until you start kindergarten I’ll be able to spend time with you too, and after school and at weekends we’ll spend time together and do stuff. I promise you’ll be safe here and happy.” She told her looking into the little girl’s big green eyes. 

“We all promise.” Kian said solemnly. 

Emma looked up at Mary as she spoke, then Kian, they both reminded her of David, they both just seemed so truthful, and as though they really cared about her, even though they had just met her. There was just something about them which made Emma want to try super hard, she wanted to stay with them until Matilda found her a forever family. She was determined not to mess this up. She nodded her head firmly. 

“Now, how about you show us all of your toys? I love that big one, is that a dinosaur?”

“It’s a dragon, the box said I can train it to do stuff and it makes steam.” Emma said.

She started to show them the dragon and the rest of her new toys until David and Alice came back into the room with two bowls of fruit, David told her that she could eat whichever fruits she liked and didn’t have to eat things she didn’t like. 

 

* * *

 

After their snack Alice convinced Emma to let her show her around the house, places David had missed out such as the laundry room, the pretty much empty backyard, and the awesome cinema room downstairs Alice promised her that they would watch a movie in there at the weekend complete with snacks, they ended up back upstairs and in Alice’s bedroom.

Alice darted around showing Emma different things as Emma stayed quiet. She grabbed her backpack and placed it on her bed and threw herself beside it. She realised that Emma was still stood looking around. “You can sit on my bed if you like y’know, or if you want to touch or play with anything you can, you’re like my sister now.”

Emma frowned. “But we’re foster sisters.” She said slowly and watched Alice look a little hurt, she suddenly felt a little guilty, so decided to try and explain herself to the older girl. “It, it’s different, they’re your family, I’m just, I’m just a care kid.”

Alice had no idea what to say to that. On the ride back home her mom and dad had explained to her that Emma might be a little closed off, (she figured that they had been told this by her other dad though they didn’t say), and that the past foster homes she had been in hadn’t been very nice to her. “You’re part of our family.” She settle upon certainly. “Even if you’re just here for a little while, you’re part of our family. My mommy always says that family has nothing to do with blood, you’re part of my family now, I swear.” 

Emma wasn’t sure what to think, she loved the idea of always being part of some family, but she didn’t know if she could quite trust it. She moved to Alice’s bed with a small smile. “I like your room, it’s really cool.” She looked at the shelves stacked with puzzles and board games, and the art stuff all on the desk and some non-fiction books. 

Alice beamed. “Thanks Emma! I like it too, it’s bigger than my room at our old house, and I got to choose how it was all done. What was your old room-” She cut herself off when she remembered that Emma probably didn’t want to talk about her old foster homes. “My parents are gonna take you shopping tomorrow, you’ll be able to redecorate your new room, you’ll be able to have it however you like. I’ll even help you decorate if you like, I swear I’m really good at art, I mean my mommy and daddies will do a lot of it but I’ll help too, if you let me.” 

Emma had never had a foster sibling want to help them or be part of her life, she couldn’t imagine having a room as nice as Alice’s, but she couldn’t help but be infected by Alice’s enthusiasm. “Sure,” Emma said with a smile and happiness in her voice, “if you wanna help you can, but I don’t think they’ll- I won’t get a lot of stuff, I probably won’t be here for long.”

Alice suddenly remembered the baby who would soon be her little brother or sister, four months time, by the end of February. By that time Emma would have a family all of her own and would be gone, she had only just got there, Alice couldn’t help but wish they had more time, Emma was quiet but she could just tell that she had more to say, that she was different, they were connected. “We’ll decorate it anyway, this is still gonna be your home, Emmy.” She smiled but saw Emma do a double take at the nickname. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to-” she fumbled quickly.

“It’s okay,” Emma looked at Alice who seemed to be pretty good at putting her metaphorical foot in her mouth, “you can call me that...” she paused and bit her lip as she tried to decide on whether to put herself out there and risk embarrassment, possibly worse. “I’ve never had a nickname before.”

Alice looked shocked. “Really?! Not even like ‘Em’?” 

Emma fidgeted with her hearing aids and looked down at her own lap.

“Tha- That’s okay,” Alice said quickly, “only my parents and my best friend Go have ever given me nicknames, and the rest of my family I guess, and nice nicknames not like the nicknames some people give me at sch- anyway it’s okay to only just get a nickname.”

“Thanks Ali.” Emma said earnestly, she saw her foster sister perk up at the new nickname, she felt proud at that. 

“Hey, I bet my daddy didn’t show you all the best parts of the house, I will, then maybe we can play with some toys?”

Emma shrugged her shoulders as though to say sure. “David got me some toys.” She admitted quietly, worried that Alice would react badly or hate her for being given some toys, but she didn’t, she just smiled. “He got you one too, it’s a bit like my one.” 

“Awesome.” Alice grinned.

 

* * *

  
  


Mary smiled as she went back into the living room and saw Alice and Emma on the floor playing with their toys, Alice was leading in the games but Emma seemed more relaxed than she had when Mary and Kian had gotten home. She smiled over at Kian who was just finishing up some paperwork so he wouldn’t have so much to do the next day. “Hey guys, dinners up.” She said smiling warmly. 

Emma looked up at Mary when she realised that Mary had spoke, but she wasn’t sure what she had said thanks to her broken hearing aids, but she saw Mary’s kind smile so she knew she wasn’t in trouble. She bit her lip as Alice stood up, she wasn’t sure what was going on.

“I made mac’n’cheese for dinner, Emma, I thought that perhaps you would like that?” Mary’s smile was still just as kind as she repeated herself, she figured that Emma was worried about messing up, she wasn’t sure if there was more to it. 

Emma nodded her head. “Yeah, I like mac’n’cheese.” She confirmed, rubbing her hearing aid as her cheeks blushed, feeling self conscious about having missed what she had said. She allowed Mary to shepherd her out of the room and into the kitchen-diner and over to the table, she sat down beside Alice and an empty seat, Kian was going around distributing plates while David filled cups with juice. Mary took the seat across from Emma and began dishing out the mac’n’cheese from the oven dish in the centre of the table. 

“It’s pretty much just normal mac’n’cheese, there’s some bacon in it, I hope you don’t mind…” Mary worried but Emma shook her head indicating that she didn’t mind it, Mary gave a small sigh of relief. “Good. Well, this is my best mac’n’cheese, David makes a pretty good one, but mine’s the best.” She gave a jokey smile and wink to Emma, but immediately sensed that she wasn’t used to it. “We also have garlic bread, do you want to help yourself to some?” 

Emma hesitated a moment, she was still hungry despite the late lunch, but she didn’t want to take too much. 

Alice reached across the table and grabbed a few pieces of garlic bread, she dumped them onto Emma’s plate, then did the same to her own pieces on her plate. “I like it best when I dunk mine into my mac’n’cheese, it makes it like cheesy garlic bread, it’s so nice.”

Emma gave Alice a grateful smile, she got one in return, while Alice began to eat Emma waited, watching Mary, Kian, and David. She hated starting new foster homes or families, it meant having to learn everything all over, and she did mean everything, different rules that they didn’t realise were rules. 

Kian had settled in the chair beside Emma and noticed that she wasn’t eating. “You can tuck in, Sunshine, you don’t have to wait for us to start, and we don’t say grace here.” He told her quietly, he didn’t want to make her embarrassed about it, she still looked a bit embarrassed so he gave her an as warm smile as he could to let her know it was okay. He had been in her shoes more times than he cared to remember. He watched her start to eat her food before he started to eat his own, Alice seemed to be a good influence on her, she even managed to drag Emma into the conversation a few times, that was his girl. 

Mary made sure to refill Emma’s plate when she looked close to finishing, which hadn’t taken long, she looked like she could do with plenty more meals like this. 

Kian reached his hand across to Mary when he saw a familiar look on her face. “She’s okay, love.” He whispered his assurances to her.

“I’m pretty sure we’re not meant to just feed her cheese.” 

Kian smirked knowing that they pretty much had that day, but he also knew that his wife was just nervous, they were in new territory here and he completely understood her apprehension. “At least she’s eating, she clearly needs to.” 

Mary watched his face change as he looked at Emma, his eyes kind of glazed over, he was not looking at Emma but remembering, clearly. She squeezed his hand gently. 

He turned his face back to her, he gave her a tight lipped smile, squeezing her hand back. “So, what movie does everyone want to watch tonight?” He asked shaking off the memories as his family and new foster daughter started to decide.

 

* * *

 

The family decided upon Tangled, in the end, mostly as they knew that Emma liked it and all hoped it would help Emma settle. David set about trying to clean up the dishes until Kian gave him a firm look and told him that he was going to hurt his shoulder more before taking over with the help of Snow. Instead, David took his medicine before giving Emma hers and then he gave her the inhaler, he could hear the wheeze as she breathed and knew that wasn’t good. 

“How about you and I take your bags upstairs to your room, you can get changed into your jammies, then we’ll all watch our movie.” Mary suggested with a smile, bent down to Emma’s height, in the background Alice was protesting doing her math homework until David assured her that he would help her. 

Emma wasn’t sure that she had much of a choice, so she nodded, she followed Mary as she led the way through the massive house back to the living room she had been in before, she tried to take the bags but Mary insisted on doing it herself. Her toys had been packed into one of the bags at some point by someone and Emma worried that perhaps she had messed up by leaving them on the floor before dinner. “The toys… I’m sorry… I should have…-”

“-Emma,” Mary kept her voice kind yet firm, “it’s okay, you don’t have to worry about packing up the toys, we can leave them down here if you want, we just thought you might want some in your new room to make it a little less empty, until we get you more things tomorrow of course.” 

Emma looked into Mary’s eyes, realising that they were a similar green to her own, and they were full of earnest honesty. Emma quickly looked down away from them, her hand returned to her hearing aids, rubbing the crack down them. “Upstairs is good.” Emma decided quietly. Mary went to pick up Emma’s beat up backpack but Emma quickly snatched it up. “No!” 

Mary was a little surprised at the sudden outburst, she watched the colour drain from Emma’s face, she crouched down again so she was on her level but a few feet away. “It’s okay,” She soothed, “it’s okay, if you don’t want me to touch that I won’t.” She paused for a moment as Emma stopped looking quite so scared. “Is that your special things?” 

“Yeah.” Emma’s voice was a whisper. 

“Okay, I like the colour blue it’s very pretty.” Emma smiled and Mary felt a little relieved. “How about I put that on your back and you can carry it upstairs to your room, you can unpack it there,” she saw Emma’s face change, “but you don’t have to.” She added quickly and Emma calmed again. 

  
  


* * *

 

They made the upstairs, reminding Emma of the way to her room, and Emma very carefully placed the bag on her new bed, that alone was a huge step for Emma. 

Mary watched Emma putting her bag down and felt relieved, she thought that she had messed it up before with the toys and the backpack, but she guessed not if she put her bag down. “Do you want to help me put your clothes away?” 

Emma quickly nodded her head, she kept thinking that Mary would be angry with her, especially when she had shouted no, but she didn’t. “Yeah, please.” She added. She watched Mary take her phone out of her pocket and do something before, placing it down on one of the empty shelves, a few seconds later fairly quiet music started to play, an old song Emma knew- it was on August’s iPod! Emma smiled automatically. 

Mary looked at Emma in surprise. “Do you know this song?” 

Emma shrugged her shoulders a little. “My friend showed me it.” 

Mary’s smile widened. “Well you have good taste in music, this is one of my favourite songs.” She watched Emma grin properly and she felt as though she had passed some sort of test. The smile was so cute, she wrinkled her nose a little when she did, and showed her tiny white teeth. Mary found herself falling for her a little. She looked away moving instead to the closet. “Did David show you that these drawers have pictures on to say what’s in what?” 

“He- He showed me the closet?” She offered.

Mary smiled knowing David wouldn’t have explained. “Well these pictures show different ones you put in them, there’s a bed one for your pyjamas,” Mary took out all of the drawers and placed them on the ground next to the bags before settling next to them, “there’s a pictures of socks for-”

“-For my socks.” Emma finished, she settled down next to Mary. 

“That’s it.” Mary praised. She took out all of the clothes from the bags and undid all of the packaging and took the labels off of them. “Let’s put these away, huh?” She watched as Emma put away the socks, underwear, undershirt, and short pyjamas into the drawers, her new hoodie was hung up in her wardrobe as were her new pair of jeans and the shirt David had bought that day. Mary was placing the drawers back in Emma’s closet when Emma started to cough again. The cough sounded painful, very painful, she hoped that the medicine for the chest infection would start to work soon. She crouched down and rubbed Emma’s back, the child looked confused when she did that, but in a good way. “There we go.” She said as Emma finished up. “I’m sorry you’re feeling poorly. I’m sure you’ll feel better soon, that medicine will do it’s work, and you’ll be back your old self.” She picked up the long pyjamas and the undershirt and the pair of slippers, she had placed aside from the bags of shopping, and placed them on Emma’s bed. “How about you get changed into these and then we’ll go downstairs and watch Tangled with everyone?” 

“Okay,” Emma agreed walking closer to the bed, “erm… thank you, Mary.” 

“It’s okay, Emma, it was nothing. Do you need any help?” She eyed the yellow cast on Emma’s arm before looking back at her tired eyes. She watched Emma shake her head. “Okay, well I’ll be in the bathroom putting some things away, if you need any help you give me a shout and I’ll come help you.” 

“Okay, thank you.” She said again, quickly, but genuinely. 

“You don’t have to thank me Emma, I care about you, and this isn’t anything.” She smiled softly at her. “But thank you very much for being so polite. Give me a shout if you need help or when you’re done.” She left, pulling the door to, and went to the bathroom to put Emma’s toothbrush into the bathroom and to potter around doing things until Emma was done. 

  
  


* * *

 

Emma looked down at her new long pyjamas, she hadn’t had any new ones for so long, in fact her version of new ones were hand-me-downs which had gone through about 5 people. These were brand new ones which were so incredibly soft, she was going to treasure them. She quickly undressed and pulled on the long pyjama bottoms, they were grey with subtle white stripes and yellow cuffs at the end of the legs, when she pulled them on the cotton jersey was soft against her bruised skin. She managed to get the undershirt on too, but she met her match when it came to matching pyjama top. As much as she tried she couldn’t get the top to cooperate.

Mary knocked gently on the door, Emma was taking a long time, and she had heard little noises coming out of the room. “Emma?” She opened the door a little. “Emma, honey, are you okay?” Her hand went to her mouth to hide her gasp as she saw all of the bruises and cuts across the little girls skin, if these were the results of care and treatment at the hospital she didn’t want to see what Emma had looked like when she had first been taken there, and although they were covered she could see her ribs clearly poked out, even through her undershirt. Emma turned to face her and a pang of guilt stabbed her stomach as she saw the look on her face. Mary quickly plastered on a reassuring and apologetic smile. 

Mary walked over towards the bed, to Emma, and crouched down next to her. She smiled at her. “I’m sorry that you got so hurt.” Emma said nothing. Mary untwisted the top for her, taking it off, then pulling it over her head. She got her uninjured arm through the sleeve. “You know, when David first got his poorly arm he found it very hard to move his arm so Kian and I had to help him a lot. He still needs a little help now, sometimes, and that’s alright.” 

Emma watched her casted arm as Mary helped her arm through, she was so gentle with it, it didn’t hurt at all. She thought about Mary’s words as she spoke. At first she thought that Mary was disgusted, when she saw her look, but Emma realised that Mary had looked like Matilda had when she had seen the injuries. “Thank you, Mary… For helping me.” 

“You’re welcome, Emma.” She smiled. “Now, let’s figure out where you want your toys, and get down stairs, when Alice is finished with her homework we can watch Tangled.” 

  
  


* * *

 

Mary looked across at her family in the darkened room as Tangled played on the screen.   
David’s shoulder was clearly sore, despite the the pain pills, but just pain and exhaustion from the day, it broke her heart how much his shoulder affected him, though not as much as the memories of the hospital as they tried to save his life hurt her. He was pretending that it wasn’t bothering him, and that he was deeply interested in the movie, Kian clearly noticed like she had as he carefully pulled David so that he was reclining against Kian’s chest.    
Alice was sat close to Emma, talking and laughing through the movie, Mary looked at her in wonder as she saw her daughter doing what was taking the rest of them ages, she was helping pull Emma out of herself and actually relax. She was always in awe of her daughter, she was growing so fast, sometimes she wished that she was still a little baby so she could just cuddle her forever and keep her safe in her arms. She wondered what the new baby would be like; clingy, independant, fussy, calm, boy, girl, she wasn’t sure how she was going to last the four months she had to wait. She cuddled a cushion against her then felt herself being pulled by Kian so she was mirroring David. She turned her head to kiss David’s shoulder. “I love you.” She whispered.

“I know.” An easy smile came across his face, his response gaining a snort-laugh and an eye roll from his spouses. 

“Nerd.” 

“I love you too.” He added genuinely this time. “Both of you.”

She tipped her head back and Kian obliged in kissing her. “I love you.” She whispered again. 

“I love you too.” He kissed her again, her mouth, then her cheek. 

“You need to shave.” Her words got smiles from both her husbands, she said it often enough. 

Unbeknown to the Charming’s Emma was watching all of them carefully, Alice was being so nice to her, she seemed to genuinely want to be her friend. She didn’t think that she was faking it, Alice seemed like a bit of an outsider like her, though in a different sort of way.   
And David, Mary, and Kian all seemed so in love with each other, and just…  _ soft _ , but she was hypervigilant… waiting for them to change for the worse.

 

* * *

 

Emma was put to bed by Mary and David, she was a little relieved that it was Kian’s turn to put Alice to bed, she hadn’t really talked to him or gotten to know him too well yet, she was a little more comfortable with Mary and David. They tucked the covers and an extra blanket around her, she had the dinosaur David had bought her tucked under the covers with her. One of her blue inhalers was on the closest surface to her, just in case, her backpack was next to the bed and when David and Mary closed the door after saying goodnight and she was shut into the dark all by herself she pulled out her special baby blanket. She cuddled the dinosaur and blanket close to her to try and ward off the foreboding dark.    
She squeezed her eyes shut as she heard sneaking footsteps enter her room. She swallowed hard but otherwise froze.

Kian tried to keep his footsteps light in case she was already asleep. He saw her eyes shut and assumed that she was tired out from her long day, he smiled gently at the familiar dinosaur head poking out from under the duvet, and some kinda white woolen thing. Perhaps a jumper, or a scarf, though he had no idea why she would be sleeping with that. She looked so much smaller and younger in the bed, though the bed was just a single, he wondered if she would grow out of that when she was older and out of care, in college or something, after all he had. He noticed her pronounced shivering and grabbed one of the folded blankets at the end of her bed and tucked it around Emma instead. “Night Em.” He whispered, gently touching the top of her head, then he left. 

Emma was surprised when Kian had just left, he hadn’t done anything that she knew was wrong or bad…. he was…. kind? Her brow furrowed in confusion as she tried to figure out what had just happened, but she kept her eyes firmly closed, trying to somehow protect herself or ignore the darkness. Soon she fell asleep, without understanding Kian’s actions, and without coming to terms with the darkness. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Kian stretched in his chair before finally flipping shut the laptop in from of him, it was his work laptop rather than his home MacBook, and it gave a little click as he did so. He had been trying to focus on the logistics of the case he had recently been working on, his first proper one since David had gotten injured, but it was no use, his mind was on other matters: mostly on Emma, and on his own past. He wondered if they would have enough time to try and help Emma out of her shell, to be more comfortable around adults, to help her in anything other than material matters. He hoped so, but he had never been helped when he was a kid or a teen, despite a couple of well wishers trying their best, as far as he had been concerned he was already damaged goods, he hoped that it wasn’t too late for Emma too. 

He stretched again, not bothering to try and hide his yawn, he was alone in the office after all. He made sure that all of the information and any files he had relating to the case were safely put away so that it was safe from any inquisitive eyes, i.e Alice, who currently was fancying herself a detective, like her two fathers. He made sure to lock his gun away in the safe, the one which only he knew the combination to, he knew it was a necessity for his job but he had only been half raised in the US so the idea of firearms always seemed bizarre and foreign to him. He had promised Mary and David that he wouldn’t stay up too late working, and he hadn’t, not by his standards anyway. He switched off the light in the room as he left and then started up the stairs towards his bedroom, rubbing his eyes and looking forward to climbing into his bed, he was rubbing his eyes when he first heard the crying coming from Emma’s bedroom. He ran towards it.

 

* * *

 

He threw open the door and turned on the light. The light illuminated exactly what was causing the six year old to cry. He saw Emma stood by the bed trying to pull at the bed sheets, the light blue was now darker and clearly wet, her pyjamas were the same and were clinging to her in a way which made it obvious that she was the one who caused the wet sheets, an accident rather than a spillage. “Emma, are you okay?” His question was automatic and caring. 

Emma stood shivering so severely that it was as though her bones were actually vibrating, part from the accident, part from the chest infection. Her shivering only increased when she saw Kian. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to, I won’t do it again, I’ll clean it-“ she blurted out urgently anticipating the punishment she had been taught she had earned. 

Kian quickly crouched down and held up his hands in surrender. “-Emma, Emma it’s okay, it’s okay.” He hushed trying to calm her before trying to help her, he heard two pairs of feet running into Emma’s room too, but he ignored David and Mary when they asked him what was going on. “You don’t have to clean this up, we will, and we’ll look after you.” 

“Please don’t make me, I don’t wanna, it hurts.” Emma whimpered still stuck in the nightmare she had just woken from.

Beside David Mary froze, it was so sudden that David tore his eyes away from the terrified little girl, to his wife whose eyes had clouded over and she was looking distant, trapped in her own thoughts. He reached out and took her hand, making her jump, but bringing her back to herself as she squeezed his hand back. They both looked back at Emma, and Kian, who was trying his best to put Emma at ease. 

A cold shiver ran down Kian’s spine and his blood began to boil. His breathing quickened and he had to force himself to stay calm. “Emma, nobody is going to hurt you here, I promise you I won’t let you get hurt ever again, none of us will.” He said it again to make sure that she heard it and took in the words. He slowly moved his hands so they were held out towards her. “Will you let us help you?” 

Emma took a few deep yet shaky breaths as she tried to calm, Kian was kneeling down as though begging, which she supposed he kind of was. She swallowed deeply. She looked at David and Mary, then back at Kian, she nodded her head. 

Kian moved forward, not making any swift movements, and lifted Emma into his arms, he had to change his clothes anyway so he didn’t care that he was getting wet also. He started out of the room with her in his arms, he stopped by David and Mary, he placed one of his hands on Mary’s back, rubbing a circle on it. “Dave and I will sort out the bed, and put the sheets in the wash, d’you wanna give Emma a bath?” He asked in a quiet voice. “I think she’ll feel a little more comfortable with you.” 

Mary nodded her head certainly. 

“Are you okay?” Kian asked in a quieter voice, David had a look on his face which showed how worry he was about Emma, but he kept glancing the same at Mary. 

Mary shook her head, she placed her hand on Emma’s cheek so gently that she barely touched it, Emma flinched at first but then relaxed her exhaustion allowed her to let her head rest against it. “Just… just some bad memories.” She told her husbands quietly. “Of the past… it was a long time ago… I’ll be fine.” 

Kian didn’t quite believe her, but he could feel Emma falling asleep against his chest despite trying not to, now wasn’t the time or place. “I’ll carry this one into the bathroom for you, then I’ll help Dave strip the bed.”

“I can do it.” David claimed despite his shoulder shooting with pain at the mere thought of doing it. 

“Dave.” Kian said gently, they knew that he couldn’t, and that he would just end up getting more hurt, now was the worst possible time to be stubborn. 

David didn’t playfully roll his eyes, he just nodded his head, feeling a little bad about causing more trouble by being stubborn. He knew there were no hard feelings anyway. He watched Kian, Mary, and Emma leave the room together before going over to the bed to move the unsoiled items off the bed. 

 

* * *

 

The bathroom seemed brighter during the night time, the light reflecting off the white tiles, making the colourful tiles seem even brighter. The three of them all squinted, well Emma fully closed her eyes, but they soon got used to the light and all opened their eyes properly again. 

Kian gently placed Emma down on the bathmat, and she stuck close to him, despite the circumstances he was happy about that. He appeared to have earned her trust, at least for the time being, he hoped that it lasted a while though, enough time for him to earn her trust entirely. “I’ll leave you and Mary, but David and I’ll see you before you go to bed, don’t worry about a thing, it’ll all be okay.” And he swore it would, even if he had to fix every single thing himself. He left. 

Mary started to run the water in the big bath, nice warm water for the still shivering child, she grabbed one of the towels before turning back to Emma. “Let’s get you out of those wet clothes.”

Emma bit her lip then quickly, and automatically brought her thumb to her mouth, not caring that Mary saw her do that. 

“Emma, it’s okay, you’re safe, and you don’t have to worry about me seeing all of your injuries,  _ you’re safe.”  _ She promised. Emma let her get her undressed, she saw all of the cuts, bruises, and scars. She quickly wrapped her in the towel. “A nice warm bath will do you good.” She sounded like her mother, or Regina, she couldn’t remember who it was who used to say that to her. She helped her sit down on the mat next to the bath then turned back to the faucet, testing the water with her wrist like she used to when Alice was a baby or a toddler. She noticed a bottle of eczema emollient, a bath soak, which should hopeful help Emma’s clearly sore skin. She poured it in. Soon the bath was ready. “Here we go, baby,” she slipped automatically but Emma didn’t seem to mind, “a nice warm bath.” She lifted her into the bath watching as Emma seemed to melt in the water, but in a good way, the bath was definitely a good idea. She reached into the bath, swirling the water around, and Emma copied. Mary got the loofah and choose one of Alice’s shower gels, they’d get Emma one the next day, she started to gently wash Emma, making sure Emma’s cast didn’t get wet, and that she was gentle on Emma’s physical injuries.

“I’m dirty.” 

Mary heard the disgust in the little girl’s words and realised that she wasn’t talking about wetting the bed. “You’re not.” She swore. “You’re not at all Emma, I promise you, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry….” As though she could have done anything to stop what  _ had _ happened. She took a deep breath and told Emma what she had only told three other people in her life. “When I was a little girl, I was… A man who was supposed to be looking after me, he hurt me a lot, and made me feel very unsafe, and very dirty, and I thought that it was my fault, but it wasn’t. And I didn’t really talk about it, but I should have, I’m telling you though, because I think you’ve been hurt like that too and I don’t want you to feel scare or to not feel safe.” Emma was silent but nodded her head minutely. “I think it might be good if you talk to someone, you can talk to me, or David, or Kian, about anything… I think it’ll do you some good to speak to someone else too, someone who is very good at helping people talk through problems.” She knew of a psychologist who was often used by the school she worked at, he was very good at putting the children at ease and getting them to talk, she’d have to talk to Matilda first so she could approve the therapy. “What do you think?” 

Emma had been told to never talk about things like that, any of the abuse, she had thought that she was the only one. But she wasn’t, Mary had gone through what she had, though Emma didn’t even know the name for it: Mary had gone through it and had survived, like a hero in one of her books, and there was just something about Mary which made her want to trust her, and the rest of the Charming family, but her past told her to be careful. She slowly nodded her head but paused. “Do you go to the someone to talk?” 

Mary paused, she wasn’t in the habit of lying to people especially people who she cared about, so she slowly shook her head. “I… I don’t... “ She paused again. “How about this, I’ll talk to someone if you do.” She wasn’t sure whether it was a right thing to do but she had a feeling that this was the only thing that would get Emma to go, now that Emma knew the truth. 

Emma perked up at the offer. She quickly sunk down again. “What if it’s scary?” Emma whispered. 

Mary’s heart broke, this little girl sounded even younger than she was, she had been through so much. “Then I’ll be there for you, or David, or Kian, whoever you want to be with you, we’ll sort it out. You’re not alone, honey, we’re all here for you.” She watched tears glisten in Emma’s eyes and stroked her hair with her hand. She jumped when there was a knock on the door, David opened it, looking a little sheepish, uncertain if Emma would mind his appearance there. 

“I found an old pair of Alice’s pyjamas,” he told them, luckily he had been sorting them out just the other day and had remembered them, the spare pair for Emma from the store were short and not right for the season “they should keep you nice and warm, kiddo. We’ll get you more jammies tomorrow.” He bit his lip expecting Emma to cry about him being in there as he passed Mary the clothes. 

“Thanks Davey.” 

She said it quietly but the use of his nickname made David smile. 

 

* * *

 

Mary led the now dry and dressed Emma back into her bedroom where David and Kian were waiting. The bed had new sheets and a couple more blankets. “Here we go, sweetie, let’s get you back to bed.” 

Emma had never been treated with so much kindness, especially after she had wet the bed, Mary looking after her and staying, and David and Kian looking after her and waiting to make sure she was okay. She was helped back into bed and David passed her back her dinosaur toy and her special blanket, understanding they were important, and not asking about them, it was hers to tell. 

“Night buddy.” Kian gently kissed her forehead relieved when she didn’t flinch or look scared. 

“If you need us for anything we’ll be in our bedroom,” David added kissed her forehead too, “you come get us or give us a shout and we’ll be here right away.” 

“And we’ll see you in the morning, we’ll have a nice breakfast before we drop Alice at school and go shopping.” Mary said trying to lighten the mood, she kissed her forehead too. 

For the first time Emma took her hearing aids out to sleep, instead of keeping them on to stay constantly alert and onguard. She placed them on the side table, watching her foster parents beam, before David tucked her into, careful not to hurt her. 

This time when they left they kept the door mostly open letting in some of the light from the hallway. 

And Emma fell asleep.

  
  



	8. Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma's entrance into the world

**_October 23rd 2012 - January 31st 2013_ **

 

 

_ Diana Wentworth had been a nurse for some thirty years, a neonatal nurse specifically, she had seen the sickest and the healthiest babies admitted to the neonatal units in the entire city possibly even the entire county. And the truth was despite all of that time, there was still just something about babies which made her smile, everything about them, and watching them advance so they could go home was breathtaking. _

_ But sometimes she worried about what would happen when certain babies left the ward, and were discharged back to their parents, or some went into the system. She sighed gently as she looked down at the tiny baby in her arms, the little girl who would probably be the one she would worry about most, she was three months old, born two months early so she supposed her corrected age was only one month, nevertheless she was tiny. But after three months in hospital, little baby Emma was ready to be discharged, and Diana had no idea what the future would hold for this little one. _

 

 

* * *

 

 

_ Diana had been there that night, in late October, when Emma’s birth mother and father had come in- the mother in early labour…. And both off their faces on something. She had known it was going to be a long night there and then. The baby girl was born and rushed, by her, to the NICU. The parents found their way down there eventually, they stuck around for a little while, but didn’t seem to want to interact with baby in the incubator or even listen to what the nurses were saying. She felt her skin crawl looking at the parents, having looked at the records she realised that the young mom was only seventeen, the father looked considerably older. She imagined her own daughter or son being in that situation at that age, she wondered where and who the baby’s grandparents were.  _

_ After only a couple of hours both parents disappeared, clearly deciding against withdrawing by instead going to get drugs, and then the premature baby started to withdraw too.  _

_ Social services stepped in, sent out alerts to try and find the parents, but to no avail. The little girl was made a ward of the state and the doctors and nurses of the neonatal unit started to try and help the three and a half pound baby go through withdrawal.  _

_ Diana was honestly surprised that she survived.  _

_ In the baby’s time on the ward Diana and the rest of the nurses had taken to calling the baby Emma, and when it became clear that the parents would not be returning social services accepted that as the baby’s name.  _

 

 

* * *

 

 

_ The baby was now about to be discharged, with a handful of health issues which would be ongoing but she was clearly a fighter, her social worker had told Diana about the foster career who would be taking Emma in and she sounded nice but it wouldn’t be a proper home for Emma.  _

_ Diana reached into the gift bag beside the rocking chair in which she sat, keeping Emma secure in her arms, and she pulled out a woollen blanket. She had made a handful of blankets like this one over the years, gifted to parents who had been especially kind despite clearly not having a lit themselves, but this one she had specially weaved a purple ribbon around the edge, and the same colour ribbon spelt out the name Emma.  _

_ “I don’t know if you’ll go back to your birth parents, or if you’ll be adopted and go to brand new parents,” she told the sleeping baby wrapping her in the blanket, “but you’ll always have this so you’ll always know that you had someone who cared for you, about you.”  _

_ She placed her back into the crib and let her sleep.  _

  
  



	9. Making a Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma starts to bond with her foster parents as she spends the day with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no see! Whoops? Here's an extra long chapter to make up for it!

Mary rang Matilda as soon as she woke up, just as she was brewing her morning tea, before she was even dressed. She had had a hard time falling asleep after Emma did the night before. Her own memories and her newfound knowledge about Emma all mixing into one. It was only when she was on the phone to Matilda that she finally felt some feeling of rest. Matilda, on the other hand, had been angrier than Mary had ever heard her. 

Matilda was majorly pissed that Emma’s last social worker had neglected to add the sexual abuse to the file, she supposed that it was because he thought it would put foster careers or adopters off, she was suddenly especially happy that he had been fired. 

Matilda listened to the deal that Mary had made with Emma, and although Mary hadn’t actually said the words she guess that Mary had been in the same sort of situation, she suddenly wanted to wrap her friend up in the biggest hug she possibly could. She agreed to the therapy, and had heard of the therapist Mary had suggested before, so she agreed to handle the appointments for Monday afternoon after Mary’s work. 

When Mary hanged up she felt relieved and at peace once more. She poured herself a cup of tea and switched on the radio, letting soft music fill the room, and heard familiar footsteps on the ground as Kian entered the room, as he did each day. 

Kian’s hair had spiked up in random positions during the night, and his English football shirt had creased during the night, the bright red shirt was one of the very few pieces of coloured clothing in his wardrobe. He yawned as he walked into the the kitchen, he walked to the table and dropped a kiss onto the top of Mary’s head, before walking over to make some much needed coffee. “Mornin’ love.” His voice was deepened by sleep. 

“Hey.” She waited for him to pour himself the coffee and sit down before talking again. “I’ve already rung Matilda and- Why haven’t you got your prosthetic on?” She tilted her head to the side with the question, it was very unusual for Kian not to wear it all the time. She reached out and gently touched the skin, softened by moisturiser, the long line scar where the skin had been sewn up, years before she had met him. 

“What did Matilda say, did you get her agree to that child psychologist?” Kian grinned, trying to copy his husband’s charming one, as he unsubtly tried changing the subject. He sighed when Mary levelled him with a look, he knew why Alice did as she was told when she was given that look. “It’s annoying me- it’s nothing to worry about-“ he added tripping over his words with haste when he saw just how worried his wife was “- I just...” he sighed before admitting, “...it’s a little sore, and uncooperative. I’m getting my new one on Sunday anyway, Robin text me last night.” 

Mary frowned, it was only a couple of days away, she hated to see her loved ones in pain. She nodded her dead despite her feelings, and Kian’s over hand squeezed hers. “If you’re sure…. If you need it sooner we could call Robin, I’m sure he could hurry it along.” 

Kian smiled gently at her, he knew that despite the small age difference between her stepmother and stepmother’s partner Mary loved them and were very clearly a family, and Robin would do anything for her. “I’m sure, but I was thinking of maybe taking Emma with me, Alice too if she wants to, but I was think that maybe someone there could check her hearing, those hearing aids she has look like shite.” 

Mary smiled gently, Kian always seemed to try to hide his soft side, the longer she knew him the worse he seemed to be at hiding it, or perhaps he realised that he didn’t need to hide it at all. She took a long sip of her tea and when she swallowed it she gave him a knowing smile. “I was thinking the same, I would say that maybe they just need a clean, but they’re look, just, so, so old and broken.” They sat for a few moments in silence and Mary watched her husband. “What’s wrong?” 

“Huh?” He realised that he had been pulling a face. “Oh it’s nothing I just… I don’t... I just don’t know if Emma will want to go with me to The Hood’s, she was very wary of me yesterday, that’ll probably only get worse after last night, I know she learnt to trust me in the moment but that’s probably changed- I don’t blame her, if I had been…” He shook his head, he had been messed up enough by his own childhood, he couldn’t imagine how much he would have been affected if like Emma he had had to withstand literally every type of abuse, like Emma had. 

“Hey,” Mary said lovingly but firmly, “ _ you _ calmed her last night, that stands for something, especially on her first night here. Don’t write yourself off, not yet.” She leant across the table and gently kissed him on the lips.

They sat in silence for a little while. “Are you sure you want to follow through with your deal? I know you don’t speak a lot about your past, your father.” his voice quietened with saying the word father, as though it was forbidden or taboo in their house, which in a weird way it kind of was was. “We can explain it to Emma, not that I don’t think it would be good, or could be, but no pressure.”

Mary smiled gently at his rambling, both of her husbands seemed to have that trait, they seemed so smooth and charming to everyone but she knew the real them, the nerdy, fumbling, and beyond kind selves. How she loved them. “I think, I think that maybe I might need it, it’s been so long, and he’s long gone but…” She swallowed deeply. 

“It doesn’t feel like it.”

She heard his voice and gave him a sympathetic smile. “Only sometimes, sometimes I forget that he can’t get to me anymore, I see someone in the store who looks like him.” She finished her sentence with a shrug, she knew too well that he and David had seen the result of her seeing someone wrong. “I’m seeing this as something positive, it’ll help Emma, and it might help me too, a little bit.”

They sat quietly drinking their drinks, both lost in their own thoughts, just waking up with the caffeine and enjoying each other’s company, the only noise was the soft music and the morning show playing from the radio. 

Too soon they had to break their revive and start their mornings properly, Mary stood up placed her hand on his back lovingly, then headed to the fridge to browse breakfast options, she needed to find something nice enough that Alice would be slightly distracted from the fact that they would all be going shopping without her, and she would be going to school. She realised that they had jam and marmalade left and smiled, she grabbed them, some bread, and some bacon, she paused for a second before grabbing the eggs too, she wasn’t sure what Emma would like for her breakfast she didn’t want there to be nothing she would like, she grabbed some sausages and set to work. 

Kian smiled watching his wife work, he loved every version of her, and every expression she made, but he loved this one especially, she was completely lost inside of herself, worried, not that he liked to see her worried, but he liked that when she was worried she just became so damn productive. She was the strongest woman, person, he knew. He felt a hand placed on top of his head, he jumped, and he tilted his head back and saw David smirking back down at him. “Unfair.” He grumbled but wiped away the playful frown when David kissed him gently on the lips. “Morning love.” 

David smiled, Kian’s accent even more pronounced than usual in the morning, when there was still a hint of gruffness, before it had been affected by all the others around him. “Morning.” He saw Mary fussing around making breakfast and walked over, placing the hand of his injured arm on her back and when she turned he placed a kiss on her lips too, with his other hand he pressed the button on the machine for coffee. “Are we having a feast?” He raised an eyebrow and a silly smile appeared on his face. 

Mary looked at everything before her as though seeing it for the first time. Pink tinged her cheeks and she turned back to David. “I just,” she shrugged her shoulder, “I want her to have something she likes.” 

David’s smile turned soft. “She’ll love it, and she really likes you already, don’t worry.” She smiled back but continued to cook. David opened one of the cupboards and pulled out three tumblers, one glass the others plastic. He filled the glass one with water before subtly opening the kitchen medicine cupboard he grabbed his bottle of tablets he had been given by the hospital grabbed two, and quickly downed it with a swig of the water. As he did this he kept his back to both Mary and Kian, but he knew they were watching, he wondered if like him they were wondering if he was going to be broken forever. He plastered back on a smile and turned to look back at them he grabbed the tumblers with one hand and walked back over to the table, placing them down as Kian stood to and walked to the fridge, his stride had changed slightly to account for the lack of prosthetic. 

“Orange or apple?” He called out. 

“Both.” David said sitting down in the chair beside the one Kian had just vacated. “Ali will want orange, to go with her marmalade, but Em’s allergic.” 

Kian smiled at how quickly David had learnt that fact, he seemed to have bonded loads with the child in the ride from the hospital the day before, just as quickly as he had bonded with their daughter when she was left on their doorstep. He grabbed the jugs one at a time and place them on the table then he sat back down with his husband. “Hurts?” He asked quietly his voice full of understanding. 

“Yours?” David nodded to Kian’s amputated arm without answering the question, he waited for Kian to nod before nodding himself. 

“I’m sorry.” 

David frowned at Kian’s quiet words. “S’not your fault, we were both on duty, I took a call.” He reached out and took his hand and squeezed gently. “We both knew the job when we took it, anyway, I’ll be back on duty before you know it.” 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


Alice walked into the kitchen just as breakfast was ready, she walked over to her mom as the toast was being placed on the table, and wrapped her arms around her in a loving embrace which Mary responded to. “Morning Mommy.”

Mary rocked her a little, and pressed a kiss to the top of Alice’s blonde curls, her little girl was growing fast, she wouldn’t be surprised if in a few years she was taller than her. “Good morning sweetheart.” She noticed that Alice had gotten herself ready for school with absolutely no prodding or encouragement. “You’re all ready to go?” Her voice went up a notch with surprise. 

Alice shrugged her shoulders but stayed cuddled to her. “I heard Emma upset last night.” She admitted. “I wanted to be helpful.” 

Mary led her head on the top of Alice’s. “Thank you, very much, but you don’t have to change too much, we wouldn’t have decided to foster her if we couldn’t give you both a whole lot of attention- especially you.” She tickled her side. “Before you grow up and get bigger than me.”

“That means next week.” 

Kian laughed at David’s joke as watched his family all settle into their usual placed at the dining table. “I’m going to grab my hand, don’t eat all the marmalade Starfish.” He gave Alice a knowing look and she stopped tipping the jar onto her toast and instead grabbed some sausage and bacon, he smiled seeing the Alice as she was starting to wean onto real food, marmalade was her favourite then too. “I’ll see if Emma is awake.” He dropped a kiss onto the top of Alice’s head as he passed. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


He walked to Emma’s room and stood outside of the closed door, he listened closely trying to figure out if she was awake, he didn’t hear anything, he knocked gently but was met with yet more silence. He slowly opened it and saw her on the ground, shrunk in on herself, with a book, a pad of paper, and a pencil in front of her. 

“David said I could have these!” Emma practically shouted her excuse waiting for the shouting to come. 

Kain raised his arms into the air, his hand up in surrender, his face soft and hurt on her behalf. “It’s okay, it’s okay, munchkin.” He soothed. “I was just checking to see if you were awake, there’s breakfast ready, and you need your medicine.” He watched her frown then her face clear and he realised that she hadn’t put her hearing aids in yet. She must have noticed too as she stood up, the ends of the borrowed pyjamas falling over her hands and her feet as she reached for them. He watched her putting them into place, with a little struggle though she clearly didn’t want help, and switch them on. 

Emma’s eyes went to Kian’s arms, or more specifically his arm, the one which ended at his elbow. There was a long line scar as though it had been sewn, and saw the twisted skin twisting the the end, it reminded her a little of the roots of trees, where it was clear that it was made of seperate parts but at the same time it looked right. “Does it hurt?” She asked him. 

Kian walked over to her and sat across from her, crossing his legs, her book and pad between them. “Sometimes.” He admitted. “Normally it’s okay but right now I need a new prosthetic- my fake hand- because my one is starting to rub a bit. Mary’s step dad makes them for me, he makes them really cool, he’s been working on my new one and it’s nearly ready.” She looked very interest in it, in a good wholesome way, as though it was wonderful not scary or weird. Alice had always been used to it so she had never looked at it like that, and he supposed that their new baby would see it as normal in a few years when they were a toddler, so Emma’s reaction was going to be unique in their household. 

“That’s cool.” 

Kian smiled softly. “It is rather. Y’know Robin, Mary’s stepdad,” he was simplifying that from step-stepfather, “his family makes loads of things like this, and I’m pretty sure he was looking for someone to test some of his new tech like I test it.”

Emma tilted her head to the side. “What sorta things to test?” 

“Well, they give legs to people who don’t have them, and arms,” he held up his own arm, “and they’ve started to make some hearing aids…” She was silent and he realised that she needed more than what he would have said to Alice. “What do you think about getting some new hearing aids?”

Emma’s hand went back to her own hearing aid. The crack down it seemed to have grown now that he had mentioned new ones. She had had hers for years they rubbed and were uncomfortable now but they were hers, they were a rare thing she had been given brand new and she hadn’t had to share… They mattered to her, but they were also broken, beyond repair. She thought of her Harry Potter book, with his glasses barely held together with layers of sellotape, she had always wondered why he hadn’t magicked up or bought new ones when he found that he had money. “Are you sure he won’t mind?”

“Who? Robin?” She nodded. He grinned enthusiastically. “I think he’d love for you to be a test pilot for it, and it’ll mean that you get aids which will help you like they’re meant to.” He watched her face light up for a fraction of a second before she hid it. It was still progress. “Cool, you can come with me at the weekend when I get my new prosthetic, we can check out the hearing aids.” 

Emma grinned and looked down at her picture she had drawn. “Thank you, Kian.” She said both quietly and gratefully. She then had a small coughing fit, and was surprised when Kian immediately helped her with her inhaler. 

“Okay, Sunshine, I think we should go and get our breakfast with everyone else, yeah?” 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Emma settled into place in the same seat she had been in the night before, this time her foster parents had put some cushions on the seat, making it easier for her to reach the table top. Mary dished her up some eggs, sausage, bacon, and toast which David cut up for her as though it wasn’t a big deal. She couldn’t remember having that done for her. 

“Here, Em, try this marmalade, it’s the best, and I didn’t even eat the entire jar!” The last part was directed to her parents who all laughed. 

“Sorry kiddos, that’s orange, Emma can’t have it.” David broke the news gently. 

Alice’s face fell but she quickly smiled and picked up the lemon marmalade. “Try this one then, it’s my second favourite, my Papa used to have it when he was a kid too.” 

Emma tried it and found that she liked it, she finished the strip of it and started on the rest of her breakfast, as she picked at her breakfast Mary quietly reminded her that she didn’t have to eat everything, just as much as she could. Emma was pretty quiet as her new foster family chattered away, they didn’t cut her out of the conversation, but they also didn’t force her to talk which she appreciated. She felt a little guilty, as Alice tried to convince her parents to take her with them instead of her having to go to school, just she also seemed to be pretty excited about getting to continue to work on her family project. Emma turned off at this next title. 

Once she had eaten all she could, David helped give her all of her medicine again, then Mary led her upstairs and got her changed out of the hand-me-down pyjamas and into the clothes David had bought her the day before. Emma grabbed her backpack to take with her, her blanket and new dinosaur were safely inside, she worried Mary would tell her no or think that it was weird but Mary didn’t say a word about it, neither did any of the others.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Soon enough she was strapped in the back of the suv, in the car seat Matilda was lending them, Mary sat in the seat between Emma and Alice as they drove. They dropped Alice off and headed into the center of the city. 

They stopped just before they hit the center and they pulled into the parking lot. Kian let Mary and Emma out of the back. 

Mary placed her hand on Emma’s shoulder to get her attention. “Honey, do you want to ride in a cart or walk? I have your inhaler with me if you need it.”

“I can walk, it’s okay.” Emma said incredibly quickly. She made sure that her backpack was safely on her back.

Mary hid a face at that, she wasn’t entirely sure if she could, but she had her medicine and if she needed to she could ride in the cart during their journey, so Mary let it go, she held her hand towards her and Emma took it, Mary instinctively rubbed circles on the back of her hand as they walked into the store. 

David grabbed the cart and pushed it into the store he leant on it and pushed himself off, gliding across the entrance before skidding to a stop. 

“Child.” Kian scoffed playfully. 

“You’re just jealous you didn’t get to push it.”

“.... Little bit.” Kian admitted making David laugh loudly. 

Emma grinned but wiped it away by the time she looked up at Mary. She was surprised to see Mary was laughing too, that was unusual for her to see, normally foster mothers had been stern and unsmiling. 

“Okay,” Mary’s school teacher side came out as she called them to attention, “first Emma, you have to decide on if you want paint or wallpaper.” 

Emma suddenly felt all of their eyes on her, she shrugged slowly, feeling a little useless. “I normally have some paint in rooms?” She offered. 

None of them liked the sound of ‘some’ paint, but there was nothing they could do to change the past, they could only make her next few months better. 

“Let’s go look at the wallpaper first.” Mary suggested in an upbeat voice. She kept hold of Emma’s hand as she led the way through the aisles to where there was entire walls of wallpaper. 

“Woah.” Emma breathed out without meaning to. 

Mary smiled, she wondered if it was the first time in the young six year old’s life that she had seen wallpaper in stores, she presumed that it was. “It’s really cool, isn’t it? We’ll look down at these ones at the end, they’ve got some brighter patterns.” She led the way to the end where the children’s ones were then crouched down in front of Emma. “How about you have a look and see if there’s any you like? Any at all.”

Emma looked a little nervous, wouldn’t it be a waste of money to just decorate it if she was only there for a little while, until she got a forever family? She knew that they had money, their house made that much obvious, but she still didn’t want to mess up…. But… perhaps they wouldn’t be angry or think of it as a waste, they had offered, and last night they really had genuinely cared. She just didn’t want to mess this up. She nodded her head. “Okay.” And she started to look. 

“Hey, Mare, how about this for our next wallpaper?” 

Mary turned her head to her dark haired husband. “The Union Jack?” 

“I thought you liked the Irish one more.” David piped up.

“They don’t have one.” He grumbled. “Anyway, I’m half English and I spent that more time there before here.” He pointed out. 

David realised that Emma had been stood still in one place for a while now. Her breathing didn’t seem any worse. “Good luck with that one Ki.” He placed his hand on his husband’s hand in commissaries as he walked by. 

“Hey kiddo.” He crouched down next to her and saw her jump a little clearly having not meant to. “Sorry, I was just saying hi.” He apologised quickly, she looked guilty about having jumped or even about him having apologised, he placed his hand on her back and smiled at her. “So, any cool paper?” She shrugged, so he looked at the second she had been looking at, trying to figure out which she had been looking at. He saw some wallpaper which might be like ones Alice would choose, particularly when she was younger, but there was one which looked like it might be just Emma’s style, judging by what he learnt yesterday. He beamed. “Woah, good find, Emma.” He pulled out the sample to be able to see it better and his spouses walked over. 

The paper had a pale blue background and a map of the world in white, on top of the ‘land’ and the ‘sea’ were brightly coloured animals and sea creatures. 

“I like the animals.” Mary complimented, she took the store device to scan the barcode and put in the measurements for the room and how many walls. 

“Ah, I ran into this whale when I was making the dangerous journey across the seas.” Kian pointed at the cartoon whale 

“Really?” Emma looked up at him with wide eyes. 

“Aye,” he forced his accent to take on his native more irish tone, “the boat barely made it across.” He could practically feel his husband and wife trying to keep their laughter as he tried to embellish his journey to the US. They started to walk, as they headed past the pain aisle David got distracted by something but gestured for them to carry on walking, so they did, with Mary pushing the cart.

“A boat, like a pirate boat?”

“Kinda like a pirate boat.” He said. “It was massive, and my brother and I had a bedroom of our own, and in the day we got to explore the place, and we ate a lot of ice cream.” He had liked the boat because it had meant that he and Liam had been able to escape their father while he went off getting drunk at the bar. At least when they were travelling he and Liam had been away from their father, they had their own room, and the food came with the ticket so they didn’t have to try and sneak money from Brennan. He realised that someone had taken hold of his prosthetic one, then, in surprise, he realised that it was Emma’s. He squeezed it gently as they walked slowly out of that section of the store in search of furniture. 

David caught up to them taking his phone from his pocket, pressed the screen a few times, then put it to his ear. “Hey, Reuben…. we just ordered the paper and things from the store for Emma’s room, they’ll be there in about half an hour, just to give you heads up…. Thanks…. Yeah, here’s Mare.” He passed the cell to Mary who already had her hand out for it, she walked off to explain everything to the person on the other end of the call, and David saw Emma looking confused. He placed his hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “That was our handyman, we wanted your room ready for you as soon as possible, so he’s going to do the wallpaper while we’re all shopping.” 

“Oh...” Emma was a little surprised that they cared that much, to rush to get her room decorated. “Okay… thanks”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to thank us, Sunshine.” 

Emma had heard Kian call her ‘Sunshine’ a few times now, she wasn’t sure that she had heard him call anyone else it, Alice seemed to be called Starfish, though for the life of her, she couldn’t work out why… Perhaps it was a sort of a nickname, they all seemed to be giving her those,  Alice and David, who kept calling her kidoo.    
“Okay…. thanks.” 

Emma started to walk a little slower, she felt bad as it made Kian have to walk slower, especially when she came to a stop to start coughing. 

Mary handed the inhaler over to Kian and he moved into action, putting the inhaler and spacer together, he crouched down and helped Emma take it. 

Kian gently rubbed her back once she was done taking it. “You okay now, Sunshine?” 

Emma slowly nodded. “Yeah, I… thanks.” 

“No problem.” He assured her. “How about you hitch a lift until we get to the furniture?” he suggested good naturedly. “We’ll let you down as soon as we get to the kids bit for you to pick out some bits.” 

Emma thought it through for a moment before nodding her head.

As soon as she did David scooped her up, wincing as pain shot through his shoulder, like electricity. 

“Davey, does your poorly shoulder hurt?” She whispered as though it was a secret. 

David bit his lip as he placed her down in the seat. “A little bit. I’ll be okay though, I’ll take my medicine soon, like you took yours.” He promised. He felt Kian’s hand on his back rubbing it.

He knew how angry and frustrated David got by his injury. They both tried not to worry Mary too much about things like that. “It’s going well, love, you’ll be okay.” Kian reassured his husband in a quiet voice. “You want me to push?” 

David’s easy smile appeared back on his face. “Nah, you just want to steal us running, right kiddo?” He grinned down at his new foster daughter. A playful smile slid onto her own face and David started to glide like he had earlier. 

Kian grinned watching them. “It feels like she’s been here forever.” He turned his head to his wife who was watching the pair like he had been, also with a wide smile. 

“Yeah, she reminds me of Alice… a lot more guarded, but just, just  _ different _ .”

Kian knew what she meant, Emma had only been there a little while... but…..    
“They’re going to be way ahead of us,” he said instead of letting himself finish his thoughts, “jump on.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Are you serious?”

He shrugged as a smirk tugged at his lips. “I haven’t gone for my morning run and I’m not leaving you here on your own.” He moved into position and his wife quickly jumped on, as he knew she would, he made sure to hold onto her, then they ran. 

David let Emma down from the cart then caught sight of his spouses running. He burst into laughter and turned Emma gently to see the sight. She started to laugh and he found himself watching her instead of them. 

 

Their cart was soon filled with some furniture in flat pack boxes or the codes had been scanned for the pieces which would be delivered. They had picked out a couple of toy boxes, two bookshelves though Emma assumed neither were for her, she only had two books after all, there was a new desk and chair, a side table, some shelves, along with various blankets, bedding, and cushions.    
Mary picked out a big multi coloured rug, Kian found some dark blue star curtains, and David found two bean bags with zig-zagged stripes the same shade as the blue of the wallpaper Emma found. Emma was mesmerised by a white teepee and a lion rug which her foster parents put in the cart as soon as they saw her looking. 

There might have been some who questioned the fact that they were spending all this money on a kid who they had only just meant, who would only be with them for a couple of months at most, but the thought didn’t even cross their minds. 

“I think we could do with a snack now.” David announced looking down at her in the cart, making Emma’s head turn away from the checkout till. “I know I could do with some coffee, or hot chocolate, you wanna try a hot chocolate?” 

“I like the sound of chocolate.” 

David chuckled. “That’s my girl.”

“You’ve got to try hot chocolate and cinnamon,” Mary shared her personal favourite, “I got these two hooked on it too.”

“I still think fudge hot chocolate’s better.”

“And if you don’t like it you can have a smoothie or a milkshake or juice.” Kian added, swiping his card, ignoring Mary’s playful glares towards David.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


The Starbucks was fairly quiet by the time they loaded up the car and drove deeper into the heart of the city. 

David held onto Emma’s hand as they walked into the store. “Hey, how about you and me choose a seat, Em? You pick, where’d you want to sit?” 

Both Mary and Kian were a little relieved that David didn’t insist on trying to carry the tray of drinks, his shoulder was better than it had once been when he was first injured, but it was nowhere near back to how it had once been. 

Emma kept hold of David’s hand, she watched Mary and Kian grab a tray and head to the queue before surveying the place. She used her casted arm to point over at a four seater table in the corner next to one of the big windows. “Can we go there?” She asked. 

“I think that’s perfect.” David praised and led the way. He got her settled into the seat next to the window before taking the seat beside her, he was going to take her jacket off of her, but she was already shivering. Instead he took off his own jacket and placed it over her legs. “This will keep you a little warmer.”

Kian carried the tray with the hot drinks on it over to the table. “Here we go, some drinks to warm us all up, and some snacks. Emma we got you a hot chocolate, if you don’t like it we also got you a bottle of apple juice.” He sat at the table across from David, next to Mary, and started to pass out the drinks.

“We’ll get you a coat next, honey, and some more warm clothes.” Mary promised, she had the same look on her face as she did when Alice was sick, or had fallen over when she was younger. She handed out the snacks they had bought, muffins for herself, David, and Kian. “We got you some chocolate cake, I wasn’t sure if you’d-”

Kian placed his hand on his wife’s, he knew that she fretted over the details, it was clear she wanted things to be perfect for Emma, understandably. “-We got you a biscuit as well, if you don’t like the cake.” 

As the adults fussed over making sure they all had something to drink and eat, David made sure to take his tablets, and Emma subtly slipped the bottle of apple juice and the biscuit wrapped in a napkin into her bag. They didn’t seem to notice the things gone, as Emma wolfed down her chocolate cake. She carefully picked up her small cup which was identical to her foster parents ones. She soon felt the heat from the hot drink against her lips, she opened them and was struck by the taste of the hot chocolate for the first time in her life. She was in heaven.

Mary watched Emma take her first sip of hot chocolate and watched her beam as she swallowed it, Mary face mirrored Emma’s as she took a sip of her own. “Good?”

“This is the best drink ever.” 

Emma was uncharacteristically enthusiastic about the drink… or perhaps it was characteristic, something she hadn’t been able to show yet, or that was what Mary hoped. She held her drink out towards the girl. “Do you want to try mine? It has cinnamon in it-”

“Okay.” Emma watched Mary’s face turn to one of pleasant surprise. “I don’t really know what cinnamon is though.” She said scrunching up her face before taking a sip from Mary’s cup. Her eyes widened and she took several long sips of the drink before reluctantly handing it back. “Why doesn’t it just come with cinnamon in it at the start?” 

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” 

Emma took another sip of her own drink before looking at David somewhat hesitantly. “... What one do you have?”

“Fudge hot chocolate, wanna try some?” 

Emma took the drink and took a sip. Hot chocolate was definitely her new favourite drink. 

A somewhat cheeky smile appeared on her face as she looked at Kian. “Can I try yours too?”

Kian let out a chuckle at her personality coming out, it was amazing to see her like this, especially after the night before, how broken and scared she had been. “Sorry, love, it’s coffee.” 

“It’s  _ always _ coffee.” David smirked, Kian was the healthiest person he knew, a bit of a health nut, but coffee was his one addiction. 

“I’ll split my muffin with you though, there’s some fudge and caramel in it.” 

Emma, naturally, agreed.

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Mary was most excited about the next part: clothes shopping. While the others were decidedly… not. Kian’s wardrobe was normally entirely made up of things in either black or as close to black as possible. David would probably live in plaid shirts if he could, he had a few non-plaid work clothes, a few nice suits, and some date-night clothes, but he had absolutely no interest in shopping for clothes. And Emma was only just six, and was definitely not interested in clothes, though she had never really been given the opportunity before, other than David taking her.

Mary took control of the cart and Emma seemed reluctant to get in it, she looked like she was trying to prove something, though Kian had no idea what. He crouched down in front of her with his back turned to her. “Jump on.” 

She didn’t move. 

“Kiddo, Ki wants to know if you want a piggyback ride.” David explained gently. 

She nodded her head and moved closer to Kian, but Kian had to show her exactly how to get on and positioned her right. 

“And off we go.” Kian kept his voice light. “Let’s find the kids stuff then we get to escape here.” He led the way a fair bit in front of his husband and wife, he had see David’s face, he knew he needed to vent.

“ _ Jesus,  _ she’s never even had a piggyback ride! She’s not just been abused and neglected, she’s been….” He hissed to his wife in disgust. 

“I know.” Mary’s voice was fairly calm but her hands had tightened their grip on the cart handle, her knuckles white. “We just…. We just have to make sure that we give her things like this, let her be a normal kid, prepare her for having a normal loving family one day.” 

“One day soon.” He said almost wistfully.

They caught up and started to get things for Emma. 

They found her a good coat, warm, and in a shade of one of Emma’s favourite colours; burgundy. They even managed to find her a little red leather jacket which she seemed to fall in love with. Underwear went in, along with some jeans, a pair of overalls, joggers, leggings, undershirts, a few pairs of shoes including sneakers, wellington boots, and winter boots. Mary found some drynites which she slipped into the cart while assuring Emma that it was okay and not a problem, and they they were for her benefit so she wouldn’t get sick.

Emma became a little more interested in the shirts and sweatshirts, they found ones with dinosaurs, animals, and disney characters she didn’t know but they all promised her they would watch together and she would love. They said it with such love and enthusiasm that Emma found herself growing actually excited about it.   
She also picked out some with superhero graphics on. “My friend Auggie had comics, he used to read to me, ‘n’ tell me the stories.” 

Emma sharing information like this so willfully was unusual, but good, very good. “That’s very nice of him.” Mary smoothed Emma’s hair down with her hand and went to kiss the top of her head but stopped herself, she was not Alice, and she probably would not have felt comfortable with it. She smiled warmly at her. “My step mom’s son loves comics too, Henry, you’ll meet him soon.” 

Emma thought for a moment. “You all have brothers.” She pointed out.

All of their eyebrows shot up at the same time, Emma didn’t laugh, but only out of habit.

“Yeah, I suppose we have.” Mary smiled. She added socks to the cart. “I have Henry and my stepmom’s husband, Robin-”

“-The one I told you about who made my hand.”

Mary nodded her head. “Robin has Roland, he’s a year older than you, so I suppose I have two.” 

“And I have my older brother Liam, and my younger brother, Junior.”

“Junior?” Emma tilted her head to the side. “That’s a funny name.”

“Yeah… He’s my, we have the same father but our mums are different, so Junior is actually called Liam, my father, he named him.”

“You have two Liam brothers?”

Kian would never forgive his father for that, he didn’t forgive him for a hell of a lot of things, but he hated that his brothers didn’t get their own names, and he always felt that he wasn’t good enough for the name of Liam. “I do, so my little brother just gets called Junior by us all, we don’t see them too much but you might meet them.” His voice made it sound like that was unlikely to happen.

“I only have one but he’s as annoying as three.” David groaned, but there was a playful shine in his eyes, but he lightened the mood. 

“Auggie was kinda like a big brother.” Emma considered. 

Mary brushed her hand through Emma’s curls. “He sounds like he looked out for you a lot.” She watched Emma nod and look a little sad. “Do you miss him?”

Emma nodded a little. She held onto her backpack just a little tighter, she had her ipod in there, the one which had been his. He had given it to her when they were living on the street, she hadn’t seen him since he got fostered, before she ended up in her last care home. 

Mary shared a look with her husbands, she had a slightly hopeful smile on her face, they knew that look well. Mary was going to try her best to get Emma to be able to see him again, the only family she had left, the only ones who didn’t hurt her, at least. She placed her hand on Emma’s head to get her attention. “I think it’s just pyjamas left to get now.” She watched her smile. “I think they’re the best too.”

They amounted six pairs of long pyjamas in total, Emma chose three of them while her foster parents found some which they thought that she would love, they didn’t realise how much it meant to Emma that they seemed to care so much for her already. 

David went off for a moment as did Mary, in opposite directions, but Kian stayed with Emma, the kid looked worn out, and a little overwhelmed when she looked at the cart which was packed with clothes and shoes. “So, I know Alice likes getting McDonalds sometimes, do you want to go there for lunch?” 

“Really? We get to go to McDonalds?” 

Kian let out a chuckle. “I take that as a yes.” He was attacked by a hug and a whisper of thanks. 

Mary and David both appeared back and Emma was fizzing with excitement. 

“Ki says we can go to McDonalds to have our lunch!” She announced with excitement. 

David shared a smile with his husband, Kian must have really taken to her, for him to be willing to go to the fast food joint for lunch, only Alice had been able to convince him to go to those… and himself and Mary particularly during college. “That sounds brilliant.” 

“Sounds good to me.” Mary was not as much of a health nut as Kian, she was close however, but she thought that a little fast food every once in a while was good. Especially on today of all days. “Honey, I got you these, slippers so your feet don’t get all cold, and a matching dressing gown, if you like them, of course.” She smiled hopefully. She had smiled at the slippers but was suddenly frowning at the dressing gown. “You wear it like a jacket over your pyjamas.” She explained gently. “And, it has a hood.” She flipped the hood up to show her the bear face and ears on the hood. 

Emma reached her hand out and brushed her fingers against the soft fluffy blue material. “Yes please, I love it, thank you Mary.” 

David crouched beside Emma, smiling at the smile she had brought to his wife’s face, he gently tapped her shoulder.    
In his hands he had a blue backpack, it had light blue and white stars all over it, yellow and orange planets, grey moons, tiny green UFOs, and a black and white cartoon astronaut spotted around. There was a matching keyring of the astronaut attached to it.    
“I know that your backpack is very, very, important to you, your things inside it are important to you,” he saw her look panicked so he started to rub her shoulder, “I’m not going to take that away from you, none of us are, I thought that maybe you’d want a new one, you can keep both if you like. But this one doesn’t have any rips or tears in it.”

Emma looked at the backpack as David spoke, she heard the hopeful note to his voice as he finished, she looked back at him and a huge smile spread across her face. “I like this new one.” She said quickly. “I really like it.” She took it from David’s hands and held it tight her casted arm wrapped tight around it like a steel gate. 

They all looked down at her, in that moment it seemed like she was finally acting like the little kid she was meant to be, holding onto the backpack tightly to keep them from changing their minds. 

“Do you want to carry it until we get to the checkout?” Mary offered. 

Emma nodded her head before holding her free hand up towards her foster mother. 

Mary smiled. “Good girl.” She took hold of her hand and they slowly started to walk to find Emma a carseat, a young child’s booster style, in the infant’s section before paying up. As soon as they had, Mary dressed Emma in her new coat to keep her warm, then they walked across the street to McDonald’s. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


After lunch at the nearby McDonald's they drove in the car to a parking lot and parked up. Mary opened the doors of the car to let David and Emma out, she smiled at Emma’s sleepy face as she undid the straps. “We’re going to be doing a bit of walking now, do you want to be carried or ride in the cart?” She offered, figuring that choosing between two options would be best, she had seen how Emma had worried when tasked with having having to come up with her own choice for all of them completely. 

Emma hesitated. “Can I, can you carry me?” She thought about grabbing her backpack but, after careful consideration, she decided it would be safe in the car.

Mary smiled, pushing a golden curl behind her ear, then picking her up into her arms. “Of course, honey.” She carried her a little while, until they got to the toy store, where they came to a stop. “Emma, we’re going to get you some more toys now, we have some ideas but if you see absolutely anything you like you point it out to us, okay?”

Emma looked from Mary to the toy store, her mouth was open slightly, she hadn’t even been in a store which was just for toys before. Let alone be told that she was allowed to pick out anything. But Mary’s voice was firm, and caring, almost loving, she reminded her a little of Matilda, she felt safe with her. She nodded her head. “Okay.” 

Luckily the store was empty, quieter than it usually was with the kids in school and most everyone in work, that would make it a little easier for Emma, they didn’t have to rush. Mary worried a little about how exhausted Emma might be but placed her down so that she was more on level with the toys. 

“How about we start off with some art and craft things?” David suggested. He figured that this would be the a little easier for her to accept. She nodded so he led the way, letting her help push the cart, as they went.

“Y’know, Emma drew a really pretty picture this morning.” Kian took his wife’s hand as they walked, he noticed a pair of green eyes on him and he saw Emma looking a little surprised, so he smiled at her.

“Really? Maybe you could show it to us, Kiddo.” David ruffled her hair as he spoke. 

“You should bring it downstairs,” Mary said smiling at her just as warmly, “we’ll put it on the fridge.” 

Emma’s cheeks turned a light shade of pink, and she plays nervously with her hearing aids, but she couldn’t stop the smile from forming. “I can do better ones.” She said quickly, eagerly, she hadn’t had a picture up on a fridge before, not even at any of the children’s homes she had been in. 

Kian found paper, of different colours including white, and colouring books, along with some more chalk, and a big pack of paints and all the accessories. 

David added a couple of packs of craft sets in, showing Emma to the ones which were for her age, crouching down next to her. “Can you pick out one you like the look of?” 

Emma surveyed the boxes and packets in front of her. “This one’s a paper rainbow.” 

David picked up the one Emm was pointing at. “Kinda, it’s a rainbow and a sun, but it’s special paper which you colour in and looks really pretty when the sun shines through it, and it’s got these bit’s down the bottom, we’ll hang it on your window, and when the wind blows it’ll make these make music.” 

“Cool.” Emma breathed out. 

They stayed in the section for a little while, letting Emma grow more confident as she looked around, the others added some more bits and pieces for Emma and Alice, Mary added in some pieces for her classroom.

“Mary?”

“Yes honey?” She placed a set of play dough into the cart.

“What’s this one?” She showed her one in her hands, held a little awkwardly due to her cast, she bit her lip as she showed it to her. 

Mary carefully took it from her and crouched down so that she was on eye level with her. “Can you read what this says?” 

“Fairy garden.” She read following Mary’s finger along the title.

“Clever girl. It’s a special set to make a fairy home, you have to grow this special magic grass and flowers, and make a fairy home how you like it.” She saw, for the first time, the possibility of hope and magic. Just a momentary glimmer, for now, but Mary had all intents to give that to her, before she went to a family forever someplace she would always be happy and believe in hope and magic. She placed it into the cart. 

“Okay, Emma, what else do you think now?” 

“Yeah, Kiddo, what toys do you like?”

“I…” She thought for a second. “I liked the building things you got me yesterday.”

“The Legos?” David guessed. He was a little surprised that it only took a little bit of coaching to get her to give them an answer. “Awesome, on we go.” 

They picked up a few lego sets: one matching the type she already had, a Jungle Rescue Base, along with a hospital building which reminded her of the one she had been in for the past few weeks, and an Elves set which Kian figured she would like considering how much she liked fantastical things. 

From there they found a couple of things based on children’s cartoons, Emma really liked, though had been very shy about admitting, they made to assure her that it wasn’t babyish to like those things. So the Paw Patrol and PJ Masks sets went into the cart. Along with tubs of animals, dinosaurs, and a playmat to go with them.

The superhero things were an easy pick, they found Marvel ones which Emma had caught the movies of on the hospital TV and through August’s stories, she took fancy to the DC Superhero Girls ones so picked two out.

By the time they were done more things had been added to the cart: a few plush toys and teddies, a couple of nightlights, jigsaws, family board games for them all to play, a doctor’s set and dress up, as well as a Harry Potter dress up set complete with wand, a remote control spiderman car, a couple of balls, some disney and pixar figures including the Coco ones which they got double of as they knew Alice liked it too, they were a little surprised when Emma picked a doll too, though at her insistence they found a boy one, they made sure to find extra outfits and a crib for it. 

There were some fun, kid friendly bath stuff added, Mary managed to get Emma to choose a shower foam wash which she liked the smell of.

David carefully lifted the yawning little girl into his arms as the cashier started to swipe the items through, making small talk with the family, David smiled as she led her head against his right shoulder. “Just one more stop after this, Kiddo, I know it must have been a pretty exhausting day.” 

“You can take a nap in the car on the way home, Sunshine.” Kian rubbed her back before joining his wife in packing.

“I think you’ll really like the next stop, though, honey.” 

Emma returned Mary’s smile, and only felt a little hesitation at the idea of a surprise, this day had been better than any dream could have been, she wasn’t sure how they could possibly top that. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Emma was carried through the streets from the parking lot, where they had left the toys in the trunk, at first Emma thought they had forgotten or left something at the toy store, but they passed it, going down several twists and turns and came across a street completely different than the rest of the city, it kind of reminded her of Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter movies, it looked old and the stores’ window displays were all full of colour and fun, the street twisted and turned. 

“Spencer’s.” David heaved a sigh. His hatred of the name lessened over the years, he had learnt to only associate it with his brother, and his brother’s family, but he remembered when his step-father had adopted him and his brother, and how their lives had gotten both better and worse. James had kept George’s last name, but David couldn’t bare to, he didn’t change his back to their father’s name either, instead he changed it to his mother’s maiden name.    
He felt a hand on his back and turned his head towards it, Kian, David’s lips quirked into a smile, he followed Mary who led them through the red door. 

Emma stilled in David’s arms, her mouth slackened, her eyes widened, and her eyes blinked fast before she just started to stare. “Woah.” She let out in a breath of air. 

David looked down at her and his smile grew. He had to admit, the bookstore was an impressive place, with the huge wooden bookcases, the curved staircase leading up to the non-fiction books, and the archways downstairs leading to different genres. It was like something out of a movie, or a book, there was a low noise of talking around, and the ruffle of pages turning. David felt like he was seeing its beauty again, only this time through Emma’s eyes, for a little girl who only survived through books this place probably seemed like an oasis. 

“Mary!” 

“Belle!” Mary hurried forward to hug her friend and brother-in-law’s wife. “How are you?” 

“I’m good, really good, you look well, how are you?” Belle smiled at her before realising had others with her. “Kian.” She smiled, hugging him and gaining a kiss on her cheek, her eyes lit up when she saw David, or more aptly who he was holding.  “Hey David.” 

He smiled at her slow words and the fact she was clearly looking at Emma. “Hey Bells.” He normally would have pulled her into a hug but he didn’t want to freak out his foster daughter. “This is Emma, she’s staying with us for a while. Em, this is Belle, she’s married to my brother, this is their bookshop.”

Emma inched closer to David, still being held by him which she was getting used to, she didn’t want to be rude so gave a tiny wave. Her eyes stayed on Belle, looking at her auburn hair falling in ringlets just past her shoulders, her kind smile with light pink lipstick, and her blue spotty dress which brought out the blue of her irises. 

“Hello,” Belle said warmly, “do you like books Emma?”

Emma sucked in her lips and nodded. She hesitated for a second before adding “I love books.”

This seemed to be enough for Belle who broke out into a whole out smile, and hugged both Emma and David, the later of whom let out a small chuckle. “Come on, I’ll lead you to the books, do you have any favourite books Emma?” 

David felt her move a little in his arms and put her down on the floor, she immediately reached for his hand and he accepted it, they all followed her, David, Kian, and Mary all knew their way around the store backwards but Belle was obviously excited to meet their new foster daughter.

“I like Harry Potter.” 

Belle smiled. “I know your pa- your foster parents really like those books too.” 

Emma swayed as they came to a stop in front of a sea of brightly coloured book spines, and lively displays filled with characters and book merchandise, she leant against David’s leg and before she could force herself to stand up up properly she felt him gently stroking her hair, so she stayed where she leant. “They’re my favourite,” her hand went to play with her hearing aid and her voice took on a shade of nervousness, “I’ve only read the first one though…” 

“That’s okay, honey.” Mary assured her. 

“Yeah,” David agreed, “we’ll change that anyway.” 

Kian saw a box set of the aforementioned books, in a trunk like box, and he added them to the basket her was holding onto. “What do you think of these ones, Emma?” He picked up a book and walked over so that he was beside Emma and David. He placed the basket down and opened the book so that she could see the illustrated versions of the books. 

Emma reached out tentatively, she brushed her fingers against the illustration of Harry in the cupboard under the stairs. “I like that.” 

Kian looked up at her and saw her green eyes sparkling as she looked at the pictures. Those eyes looked so much like Mary’s, especially now that they looked to be full of life, in fact he could see a lot of David in her smile. “Good, maybe we could read them to you, if you want?” 

“Yes.” Emma surprised herself at the velocity of the words spilling from her mouth. “Please?” 

“Sure thing.” Kian beamed. He added the book to basket, along with all the others in the series. “Now, how about we all look for some good books?” 

“Okay.” Emma agreed.

The adults were the ones who found the books at first, getting Emma’s opinion on many but just adding some ready for her to be surprised by, they got two more baskets when Emma eventually joined in. 

Kian found a book,  _ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, _ he held it carefully in his hands.

“What’s that?”

Kian nearly jumped when he heard the little voice from aside him. “You nearly gave me a heart attack, Sunshine.” He joked. He crouched down to be on eye level with her. “This is a book my mum read to me when I was just a very little boy, about your age.” 

“Before you went in the pirate ship?”

Kian chuckled. “Yeah, a long time before I went in the pirate ship, I was about Alice’s age when I came here. I’ll tell you all about my adventures one day.” He promise. He watched her run her fingers along the embossed cover. “This is called The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, these four children have to go live in a new house, and they find a magic wardrobe to a new land.”

“Can we read it? Ali might like it too.” 

“That sounds like a brilliant idea.” Kian praised though he realised that she was quick to include Alice to try and get it. “Even if Alice doesn’t want to read it you and I can.” He added it to the basket and they continued browsing.

“E-” David looked down expecting to see the little blonde girl by his side, but she wasn’t, so he looked over at Mary, then Kian but she wasn’t with them either, he looked towards Belle, but there was no Emma. “Emma?” He was about to panic when he realised that she was sat crossed legged on the floor next to the kids picture books, one was open in her lap. He wondered why she hadn’t answered him but remembered that Kian had mentioned her desperately needing new hearing aids. He walked over and sat beside her. He placed his hand on her back making her jump.

“I wasn’t looking at that! It’s a baby book!” She felt her heart beat out of her chest. 

“Hey, hey, hey.” David held his hands up in surrender and kept his voice soothing. “It’s okay, Emma these aren’t baby books, they’re books for kids your age, you’re meant to like them, in fact, I think it’s very good that you like them.”

“Good?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Emma said after a slight pause.

“Let’s add your favourite ones first, then I’ll show you some of the ones I know of, and you can let me know if you like them.”

 

Eventually they had three baskets full of all different children’s books ready to be stacked on Emma’s new bookcases, and few for Alice, and a couple of them they couldn’t resist. Emma looked exhausted yet she was still happy, which was a nice sight to see, her smiling. 

“I promise we’ll come back soon.” David assured Emma who was leant against his leg as though she was about to fall asleep.

“You should, y’know if you’re free you two should come back here on tuesday, we have storytime and meeting other kids, if Emma’s not in school by then.”

“She has a couple of weeks before she starts kindergarten, for settling in and with her chest infection, we could pop by, what do you think Em?” David looked carefully at her to see if she had been listening and had heard Belle.

Emma nodded her head, she had taken to Belle, she tipped her head back to look at David. “Can we?” 

“Sure kiddo.”

“ _ Belle! _ ” 

“We’re in the kid’s section, James!” The australian called back to the call from her husband trying to locate her.

James took a deep breath in when he saw his brother and sister in law, and his twin brother, he nodded to them in greeting. “David. How are you?” His eyes surveyed his brother for a moment. “How’s your shoulder?”

David rolled his eyes. “It’s fine.”

“ _ David _ .” He gave him a look and nodded his head to follow him as they needed to talk.

David rolled his eyes again, he dropped down to crouch next to Emma, and plastered a smile onto his face and into his voice for her sake. “Do you wanna pick out some more books? Mary and Kian can help you, and Belle, I’ll be back in two minutes, I just have to go and talk to my, my brother.” He barely refrained from saying ‘idiot brother’ but only for Emma’s sake. 

 

 

He followed his brother around the corner. “What?”

“You know what. How is your shoulder, without lying to me, this time?”

“Remind me again when you suddenly became the responsible serious one?” 

“When my _ little brother _ decided to play  _ superhero _ and jump in front of a slew of _ bullets _ .”

They were both still and quiet. James had been angry with him for the past few months, David knew it, though James had never said it outloud before, David looked down at the wooden floorboards and he heard his twin sigh. He knew him well enough to know what that meant. He already knew that James regretted saying it. “You’re only forty three minutes older.” He said, something which he had been saying since he was able to talk. 

James let out a laugh. “I’m still better looking though.” His usual response made David look up and let out a scoff mixed with a laugh. “Davey?”

David heaved a sigh, he looked down, his hand scrubbed the back of his head feeling his short hair brush against the palm of his hand.    
He and his brother had once been as close as any twins, George tried to push them apart when they were about Alice’s age, after their mother’s death, and he had mostly succeeded, but he didn’t count on one thing: neither twin would give up on the other, not really.    
So David was constantly trying to keep James clean from drinking and drugs, he was constantly punished by George for trying to stop him, and eventually James started trying to prevent George from beating David up. They became close once more. They left as soon as they could, just turned 18, they both had massive trust funds from their father and from their mother, they managed to completely get rid of George from their lives.    
When he had died neither twin had shed any tears.   
But David still felt as though he should be the one protecting his brother. 

David looked back up at his brother. “It hurts.” He admitted. “All the time. The physios are always saying I’m getting a little better, but it’s not working, not fast enough. I should be out there working, instead I’m off indefinitely, with a fucked up arm, I can lift Emma, our foster kid, but I can’t Alice, not with that arm.”

“Have you told Kian and Mary?”

“I don’t want to worry them- Mare still has nightmares, and Ki, he still feels guilty because I got the call to go.”

“He couldn’t have stopped that.”

“Try telling him that.”

“Have you been for more scans?” 

“Not yet, I’m going to, I have them booked, I just need to tell Mare and Ki about it. I need the scans for my work eval.”

“How’s that looking?” 

David pulled a face. “Unless I can pass a physical I’ll be stuck working the desk.”

“Which you don’t want to do?”

“Which I don’t want to do.”

“So don’t.” James said. Truth be told he worried about his twin out there already, but now he had been shot, well, James didn’t want him to go back on duty ever again. He would support David’s decision though.

David stayed quiet.

“Anyway, who’s the kid?” James watched as David’s face clear and broke out into a smile. 

“That’s Emma. She’s the same age as Jayne, she came to us yesterday, she’s a bit quiet and anxious, and her past foster careers and her birth parents.” He shook his head, he couldn’t understand how anyone could do those things to a kid, let alone to  _ Emma _ . “But she’s funny, and smart as hell, and curious, when she lets herself be. It’s kind of like she’s always been here, we’re just trying to get her to feel more relaxed with us, I think she’s already starting to.”

“You adopting her?”

“Wha- No. No I, we’re just fostering her for a while. You know we’re, we want a baby. In fact we’re not telling people yet, but there’s a baby due in about four months, going straight to adoption, apparently it’s a long list of people lined up ” He smiled at the thought of raising another one of his babies, he had loved raising Alice, he still did, he was beyond proud of the preteen she was turning into.

James nodded his head slowly. “I know it’s not quite the same, but Gideon was already three by the time Belle and I got together, at first I thought that it would have been easier or made me more his dad if I had raised him from birth like you were doing with Alice… I thought I would love Q more, but I didn’t, I still don’t. I didn’t have to raise him from birth to get that bond, I got that straight away, he’s my kid.”

David paused again. Mulling over his brother’s words. But he shook his head, trying to get rid of the words of advice and help. “We should get back to them. Hey, you got any comics here?”

“Yeah, for the kid, Emma?” David nodded. James thought for a moment. “I have a few which will be good for her.” 

“Thanks Jamie.” 

“Don’t call me Jamie.” 

“Sorry Jamie.” 

They found the comics and went back, introducing James to Emma, neither revealing any details about their conversation just then. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


 

“Okay, let’s go get Ali.” Kian did up his seatbelt, he looked back in the mirror at his husband and kid and grinned, he got Mary’s attention and nodded her head back to Emma in her new carseat. 

Mary turned her head around and saw that Emma had already fallen asleep, in her hands was the dinosaur David had brought her, Mary realised that the blanket had been added to her backpack to get it here, she looked to David who was looking at Emma with shiny eyes. Kian started to drive, heading towards the school, but even he kept glancing at her through the rearview mirror. There was something about that little girl which made it hard for any of them to look away. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Emma couldn’t remember falling asleep, but when she blinked open her eyes she realised that she was back at the Charmings’ house, she was in the main living room covered in a a faux fur throw, in her arms was her dinosaur toy. She let out a yawn. 

“Hey Emma,” Alice beamed down at her foster sister the second she saw that she was awake, “my Mom, Dad, and Papa are in your room, they’re putting up your furniture and putting away your clothes. Mom said I get to pick what takeout we get, I’m between chinese and pizza, which do you like best, or do you like them both best-”

Emma expected a foster sibling to be angry or jealous that the new foster kid was getting bought stuff, but Alice didn’t seem to be either of those, she just looked happy to see Emma. She sat up, her hands went to the straps of her backpack, but it wasn’t there. She scrambled up looking around. Her eyes darted around the room desperately. “-My, my backpack- where’s my backpack, I need my-”

Alice moved back a little so that Emma wouldn’t knock into her as she flailed around in search of it. “It’s over there,” Alice pointed to armchair beside the fireplace where the shabby backpack sat on the chair, “my mom put it there so it didn’t get damaged while you were napping.” 

Emma practically threw herself off of the couch and nearly tripped over herself to grab the bag. As she grabbed it some things spilt out: her baby blanket, her dinosaur David bought her the day before, her copy of Harry Potter… and some more worrying things, bottles of juice, lollipops from the hospital, eight pots of jam and marmalade, and several packs of cookies- including the one she was bought at Starbucks earlier. She felt someone at her side and she jerked, getting ready to run or to defend herself. 

“I was just coming down to check on you.” Kian kept his voice quiet, calm, and understanding. “It’s okay, I’m not going to take anything from you, I get it, these are important- right?” He watched her nod slowly.    
He remembered his own backpack, it had been Liam’s, he had packed it for Kian as Kian had stood there watching.   
“I’m not going to take any of your things from you, none of us are, but can I help you put them back in your backpack?” 

Emma hesitated, but it was like the night before, when he had been understanding and kind and just... a point of calm in everything. “O-Okay.” She took hold of her baby blanket and her her dinosaur. She watched him re-wrap the biscuit he had bought her hours earlier. “I’m sorry.” 

Kian’s head shot up hearing her whisper. “Sunshine, you don’t have to apologise,  _ I _ understand, I really do.” He willed her to believe him. “We don’t have to talk about this right now, if you don’t want to?” He wasn’t surprised when she immediately accepted that offer. “Okay, that’s okay, I’m going to tell Dave and Mare because they need to know, and we don’t keep secrets from each other, but they’re not going to mind either, I promise.” 

Emma wasn’t sure what to believe, she had been taught not to believe promises, but there was just something about this family… She nodded her head. “...Okay.” She agreed.    
  


 

Kian made sure that Emma had a drink and a snack after she woke up, along with the medicine she had to take, and Alice did her school home reading, Emma listened closely to the book, and Kian was more than happy to have Emma and Alice sat on either side of him bonding. 

After a couple of episodes of cartoons, which the girls happily watched together, Alice explained some of the bits to Emma who had only watched the cartoons in hospital and in perhaps a couple of children’s homes, Kian’s phone buzzed, he glanced at the screen and grinned. 

“Can we watch another?” Emma asked him hopefully. 

“Well, we could… or we could go and check out your room, it’s got all your things you chose in it earlier?” He had barely finished his sentence when Emma pushed herself off of the couch to stand up, her eyes wide, her eyebrows up a little as she looked at him, all alert and eager. 

“I wanna go - I mean can we go see it, maybe?” 

Kian’s heart broke just a little, at how she she felt she had to be, he knew that only too well. He had to remind himself that he was completely different now, he was a different man entirely, and he pushed those memories deep inside of him once more. He plastered a smile onto his face. “Of course we can go see your room. Do you want to lead the way?” 

Emma hesitated for a second, then she felt a warm hand take hold of her own cold one, she turned her head away from Kian to the other side. Alice was looking down at her with a kind smile upon her face.

“Come on Emmy, let’s go see it, yeah?” 

Emma’s hand closed around Alice’s and a smile grew. “Yeah.” She agreed, walking hand in hand beside her foster sister out of the room, she looked back to make sure Kian was following them, when she realised that he was she shared another smile with him.

  
  


* * *

 

 

 

Upstairs Emma’s bedroom door was closed and there were no signs that it had changed at all. Emma turned back to Kian. 

He knocked on the white wood of the door. 

“Come in!” Mary’s sing song voice called back. 

Emma pushed the door open. 

The floor was still the same hardwood flooring, the wall to her right and far left were still the warm white colour, and the rainbow blinds were also still there. 

But now the wall facing her from the doorway was covered with the wallpaper she had chosen, the blue with the white continents and the bright animals, in the corner the white teepee had been set up, strung with some fairy lights and inside Emma could just about see some of the cushions and blankets inside of it like a proper fort. In the far left corner of that wall was the new bed with its brand new dinosaur duvet set on, both of which she had helped her foster parents pick out, and beside it the side table and a white origami style dinosaur lamp. But what caught her eye was at the foot of the bed next to a big wooden bookcase the same style as the other furniture. 

“Emma.” She read quietly. Kian crouched down beside her and she looked at him as best she could with tears in her eyes. 

“That’s right, Sunshine,” he whispered with pride clear in his voice, “that toybox has your name on it so you can keep it with you no matter what.” He gently brushed tears from her cheeks. “Are you okay, do you need to have a break or do you want to see the rest?” 

“I wanna see it.” She nodded her head vigorously. 

“This is so cool.” Alice said, she managed to restrain herself from pushing in front of Emma to see the corner of the L-shaped room, instead she decided to look at the toys which were piled next to the fort, a most seemed to be sort of generic age wise, like all the Lego and even the doll, but there were some things like they’d buy for her younger cousins, Jayne and Roland, she found herself smiling at that, her parents had told her that Emma had felt like she had to grow up really quick because the places she lived in were unsafe; she wanted Emma to feel safe here and be able to be a kid like the other kids they had fostered had.

Emma glanced back at Alice who grinned encouragingly at her, so she carried on walking past Kian, across the rainbow coloured long rug over to where both Mary and David were. David was stood next to the bean bags they had found, placed now in front of the window,now they were in the room she realised they were the same colour as her wallpaper, and with the same pattern. Mary was next to the desk, with its alien character desk chair, setting up art supplies in different pots. Beside the desk was another bookcase waiting to be filled, and on the furthest wall opposite the bed in the furthest corner of the room was what looked like a blackboard. 

“I found some special blackboard paint when we were at the store, and I had the guy decorating add some wood to make you a special artist’s board.” David explained. 

“Did you do the drawings one it already.” 

“Yeah I did, kiddo, just so that you could see it.”

“They’re very pretty drawings.” She said in awe, she moved closer so she was leant against him, he wrapped his arm slowly around her shoulders. David had drawn cartoon versions of all of them on Emma’s blackboard- Alice, Mary, Kian, David… and Emma was there. “Welcome home.” She read out slowly. 

“Yeah.” Mary crouched down on her other side and Kian and Alice both a little behind her, Kian’s hand on her shoulder, and Alice held onto her hand again as they all looked at David’s piece of artwork. “Because this is your home until you get your forever family, we promise.” 

“Thank you.” 

Mary barely heard her whisper. She leant her head closer to Emma’s and whispered herself. “You don’t have to thank us honey, we care about you, you deserve a nice bedroom and things.” She tried to tell her though she wasn’t sure if she believed her. She pointed to the device in the socket under the board. “And I found you a little night light, it’s okay to be scared of the dark, but that’ll make you be able to sleep better as it’s going to put loads of stars all around your room.” 

“Cool.” Emma admitted. 

David showed her that the calendar they had bought the day before was now attached to the closet door, when he slide the door open she saw all of her brand new clothes, the shoes on the lower shelves until she was ready to use them, then they would join the rest of the family’s downstairs. 

There was a lion face shaped rug on the floor in the corner where the desk and chalkboard was. And Alice was the first to spot the hot air balloon shaped ceiling light shade. She ran out the room and returned a few minutes later with a small elephant beanie baby. “Now you have an Ellie the elephant, to run away to the circus.” She said, and when Emma looked confused she told her the rhyme she had heard her parents saying often enough. 

They started to add the finishing touches to the room, curtains and blankets, and they let Emma decide where all the books, toys, and teddies went and soon the whole place looked as though it had always been Emma’s bedroom. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


They ended up with both pizza and chinese takeout for their dinner, they forwent the dining room instead choosing to eat in the living room while Coco on the screen. Emma tried the different types of pizza and chinese food, only avoiding the ones with obvious vegetables, once that movie finished Emma and Alice both got ready for bed, before watching the next movie: Emma chose Meet the Robinsons, listening to Alice’s recommendation. Alice cuddled up to her mom who stroked her hair in the way which always put her to sleep when she was a toddler, halfway through the movie Emma found herself cuddled up on Mary’s other side, she was asleep only a little while later.

The movie ended, Mary kissed Alice’s forehead, then Emma’s. “It’s bedtime Alice, Sweetie, you have school tomorrow.”

“I’ll carry this one up.” David scooped his foster daughter into his arms, his shoulder did not hurt, “I’ll come and say goodnight to you in a moment, Princess.” David promised his daughter smiling at her with love. 

Alice watched him go and felt Kian drop a kiss to the top of her head. 

“You heard your mum, Starfish, go on up and we’ll be up to say goodnight in a moment.”

“Okay.” She groaned. She smiled as her mom gently cupped her face. “Mommy? Is it going to be like this when we get the new baby? Feel like this, I mean.”

“Feel like what, Sweetie?” Truth be told she had almost forgotten all about the baby, it had been an incredibly busy day, she would start to think of their new baby again when everything had settled down again. 

“Like home. More homely. Like it is with Emma here.” 

Mary was not sure what to say.

  
  



	10. The Backpack: Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma was not the only one who had a childhood backpack.

**_1994_ **

 

“Liam, Liam please!”

“Kian, I, I can’t.” Liam felt way out of his depth, he felt so useless, and so angry, he hadn’t asked to be made into a surrogate father for his younger brother, he had only just turned eighteen a week ago. 

 

Their father was meant to be looking after both him and Kian, he was meant to act like a father, instead since their mother had died their father had been a monster. Kian looked the most like their mother and Brennan had taken his grief out on him abusing him verbally and physically, both in England and in their ‘new life’ in the USA, when he was there that was. Liam tried to protect him but he was barely able to protect himself. 

 

“Please?” Kian’s voice broke and he felt his brother’s arms wrap tight around him. “Don’t let them take me. Dad’ll be back, they just need to give him more time to get here, he’s just busy with work.” 

“Ki… we both know Dad’s not busy with work.” He whispered kissing the top of his head. He hugged him closer, Killian was only twelve and had a black eye from where his father had punched him, and that wasn’t nearly the worst injury he had been given. “He’s gone, but I’m always going to be here for you-”

“-You’re letting them take me! You’re not coming with me!” 

“I would, I swear, but I’m too old to come with you. They’re…” He looked at the social worker who gave him a sympathetic smile. “They’re going to find you someone who’s going to look after you for a little while, better than dad ever has, and I’m going to figure out a way for us to live together as a family, just us two.”

“But I don’t want to go, I don’t want to leave you, you’re my brother-”

“-We’re still going to be brothers, we’re always going to be the Jones brothers, us against the world.” 

“I need you, please.” 

The social worker could see that the young man was struggling, they both were, she only wished that she could take both of them, but Kian was only twelve and Liam was an adult in no position to look after a child on his own.    
“Kian, we’ve made sure that we’ve lined up a place for you which is aware of your,  _ unique _ , needs, and your brother will be allowed to visit you, and we’ll be trying to put your family back together-”

“- Not with our father, he was constantly hurting Kian, you can’t let him-” Liam implored.

“-He won’t be, he was already aware of all of this, we have tried to help him, but it’s unlikely that your father will ever have full custody again... I’m so sorry, but we have to get going, we have a bit of a journey, perhaps you could help him pack.” 

“Our dad took the suitcases.” Kian whispered, he moved away from Liam slightly, his voice cracking and numb. 

“Well… we have some black bags which can be used, perhaps your school backpack too?” 

 

Everyone said that Kian wouldn’t be able to properly remember his mother, he was only just five when she died, an illness which was untreatable, but Kian remembered her perfectly:    
He remembered her soft irish lilt, which had been so normal in ireland, which he missed for the fire years he, his brother, and father had lived in London, the last two years in America had been even worse, the distance from the accent trying to force it from his memory.

He remembered how she had painted his bedroom for him when he was four, she had let him help, painting the light blue room, and surprising him with a beautiful seascape mural, Liam said he must had gotten his art skills from her. His room hadn’t been as good in London, he had found some paint and painted it, with Liam’s help, but there was no beautiful mural. 

Two years later and he was across the sea from his birthplace, in the second flat,  _ apartment  _ he reminded himself, his bedroom was crap, the old wallpaper was peeling, the carpet rough and thin, and the room was always cold as the window didn’t shut properly, and Killian only had a mattress on the floor not a bed. 

He walked into the frigid room and upturned his backpack with his one working hand. Liam followed close behind him. 

“Hey, Ki,” Liam placed his hand on his brother’s back to get his attention, “Here, have some of my sweets and some biscuits.” He handed over a few candy bars and a packet of cookies he had been saving for himself. He placed them into the bag as he watched Kian trying to fold up his shirt. “Hey, let me-”

Kian snatched it back. “I can do it.” He tried his best but his prosthetic was useless, he couldn’t move it, it angered and frustrated him, but he was already angry and frustrated about being separated from his brother. “I miss mum.” 

Liam only just about heard his little brother. He wrapped his arm around him. “Me too, kid, me too.”

Soon Kian’s backpack was full with things he wanted to keep closest, the other bits of toys, clothing, and other bits were packed in black trash bags. 

The lady wrapped her arm around Kian’s back and started to lead him out. “Come on, Sunshine-”

“Don’t call me that! Only my mum called me that.” 

“Ki,” Liam called from where he stood watching Kian being led out of the room. His heart broke as he saw the tears in his brother’s eyes, “it’s going to be okay, I swear, I’ll, I’ll fix this, I… I’ll find a way… Just, just be good, yeah? Please mate, just be good and do well in school, keep your temper, I promise I’ll, I’ll fix this.”

 

* * *

  
  


**_Six years later (2000):_ **

 

“I told you that you didn’t need your help.” 

“Kian this is a big deal, of course I’m here-”

“-You should be sorting out your bar, you’ve got loads to do still before it opens, I can handle this.”

“I’m helping you move into your your college room.” Liam said finally. 

He had seen as much as he could of his brother over the past six years, but he feared that they would always be fractured, he hadn’t been able to get custody of Kian, as desperately as he had tried. Kian resented him and Liam had often avoided him purely out of guilt. 

“Wait! Give me that one, I can carry it.” Kian snatched the black backpack off of Liam, it hadn’t left him since he was twelve and moved from their family apartment, it had been with him constantly since. He hadn’t unpacked it in his first few months in care, he thought he would be back with his brother by then, but he didn’t, Kian started to leave it packed because he got moved so often, who would want a one armed teenager who struggled to keep his temper?

There were already things in the college room, and a guy Kian’s age who jumped up when seeing him, his eye had the remnants of a bruise, slightly yellow and green. 

“H-Hey.” The blonde man held out his hand. “I’m David, we spoke through email?”

The guy had a slightly nervous smile, his eyes flickering over both Kian and Liam, evaluating them as though assessing if he was in any danger or not. Kian knew what that felt like more than most. Perhaps this rich kid was more than Kian had first thought. David held out his hand to him.  

“Sorry my, er, my arm.” Kian nodded at his prosthetic, he was waiting on a new one, so this was a lot harder to use than he was used to. 

“Oh, sorry.” David’s words practically tumbled out of his mouth, he dropped his hand, he held out the other one instead and his true and easy (if slightly sheepish) smile appeared on his face.

“Kian. It’s nice to meet you, David.” 

“Likewise.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

**_\+ Two years later (2002):_ **

Kian retrieved a book from his backpack, depositing his finished book back into the old black backpack which had faded in parts through age. 

“Why don’t you just unpack?” Liam frowned at the black backpack, he wasn’t a fan of that backpack, every time he saw it he was reminded of his twelve year old brother’s prepubescent begging to stay with him, and of his own broken promise to get him back. Instead he had aged out, and Kian had never quite trusted him again, Liam knew that but he had no idea how to fix that.    
“You have a room here, I know you’re still at college but we’re not too far from it, you can visit some more if you like, and keep things here. I know the bar sometimes gets a bit noisy-”

“-It’s not the bar, Li.” Kian sighed, he scrubbed the back of his head with his hand, a habit he had picked up from David. “I borrowed the book from Mary, I don’t want to lose it, and I’m going to hers soon, it’s pointless unpacking.” 

“I’m sure Mary can afford another book.” 

“Give her a break Liam, she’s not like that, she’s different than other rich kids- and so’s David.” 

Liam went to say something but stopped. He sighed and looked down at the wooden floor, stood in the doorway to Kian’s room, above the bar he had built from nothing. “I know. I know, I just - I worry about you little brother.” 

“You don’t have to.” Kian assured him trying his best not to sound too harsh. He loved his brother, truly, yet there was always just something between them. “I’m okay Liam, I’m twenty, you don’t have to watch out for me anymore.” 

“I’m always going to look out for you.”    
Kian turned his back on him.   
Liam’s eyes flickered down to backpack.   
“No matter what.” 

 

 

* * *

 

 

**_6 years later (2008):_ **

“Honey, your backpack-” 

“Oh.” Kian was surprised to even see it, he had forgotten all about the black backpack he had once carried absolutely everywhere with him, now it had just fallen off of the pile of his belongings as he, Mary, and David finally moved in together, after 8 months of being together. They had all been through a lot, before and since they had met when they were 18, some 8 years previously, but had finally admitted and realised their feelings for each other and were in a position to sustain a healthy relationship.   
“I… I forgot about that.” He dumped the boxes in his arms on the coffee table and threw himself onto the couch, his backpack in his hand. 

Mary sat beside him, her hand on his back, rubbing circles, and David flanked him on the other side, tilting his head in curiosity at the bag as Kian unzipped it. 

Kian let out a chuckled as he discovered what was inside. “I was wondering where this was.” He took out a book and passed it over to Mary. “I think I borrowed this when we were in college.” 

Mary let out a laugh and leant across kissing him on the cheek. “Well, now we can all share it.” 

Kian took out some more things, an entire change of clothes, some snacks which were mostly out of date now, there was another book, a half used diary from when he was about 21, and an envelope. “‘Open when needed - 2005’.” He frowned as he read it then looked at Mary and David.”I have no idea what this is, I’ve never seen it before: It’s not even my writing, it’s Liam’s.” 

“Open it.” David encouraged. He knew Kian was always putting off talking to his brother but they had once been very close. He knew the feeling and how hard having a brother could be. “Liam obvious meant it for you, you’re the only one to ever use that backpack, he knows it’s yours.” 

Kian opened the envelope and let out a breath. “Shit.” He opened the envelope a little more to show them the notes inside. “There’s hundreds in here.” 

“There’s a note.” David picked the piece of paper out of the envelope and passed it to Kian. “What’s it say?”

“Erm…. ‘I know you said you didn’t need money from me or paying, but here’s the money you earned working at the bar this summer - but it towards something fun. All my love always, Liam.’ Jesus, I didn’t even know he put it in here, I told him he didn’t have to pay me.” He shook his head in shock.    
Nowadays with a steady job and both David and Mary having money and jobs and having a fully paid for apartment in the city he didn’t really have a need for a few hundred dollars. 

He stood up and placed the backpack next to the bookcase and leant the envelope on one of the shelves a few feet above it. “I’ll leave it there for now… There’s nothing I can even think about spending it on.” 

“There’s no rush on it.” Mary assured him.

“You should speak to Liam.” 

“He’s been busy, since taking in our, erm…”

“Little brother?” Mary supplied. “You should meet up with both of them soon, you’ve barely seen Liam Junior-”

“-We’re calling him Junior now, his mum called him it, and it’s less of a mouthful.” He had met up with them a few times. 

The kid was eight, and Liam was now thirty-two with a successful business and a place to live, social serviced gave Liam what they hadn’t done years before and gave him custody of his brother. Kian tried not to resent the pair of them, or to be jealous or envious, but Junior had gotten what he never had, he would never need a backpack like the one Kian had owned for fourteen years, until he finally had his own home with people he trusted: Mary and David. 

 

* * *

 

 

**_9 Days Later (Still 2008):_ **

There was a knock at the door and Kian rushed to answer it. Crying baby in his arms. 

“Jesus.” Liam gasped. “You weren’t kidding.” He followed Kian inside the apartment, Junior following him sheepishly. 

“Why the hell would I kid about some woman leaving a- leaving  _ my _ kid on the doorstep?!” He raised his voice and the baby started to cry again. “Shhh, shhh, shhh, it’s okay baby, it’s okay, I’m here, Papa’s got you.” He hushed and the baby settled again.

“She’s definitely yours?”

“ _ She _ left a letter, saying I was, and we called social services to make sure I wasn’t going to get done for kidnapping or something.” He rambled to Liam, gently bouncing the baby. David passed them by, placing his hand on his back, both he and Mary had been fussing over the baby, they understood everything and much to Kian’s surprise they hadn’t kicked him or the baby out.    
“I took a DNA test, she’s mine, they’re awarding me custody, so long as 

“Are you- Are you going to keep her?” Junior asked hesitantly. The brothers all shared a father, a deadbeat who had left them, before Junior was a year old in his case, he hadn’t turned up when Juniors mom had died. Now all he had were two older brothers, Liam and Kian, the latter of which he had barely seen. 

Kian took in a breath and frowned at his little brother. Slowly a small smile appeared on his face. “Of course I am. Look, Junior, you’re a Jones, we don’t leave each other, no matter what.” He looked up at Liam, he knew how hard Liam had tried for him, he realised that was what mattered. He looked back at his little brother. “You and Alice are both Jones’, it doesn’t matter we all have different last names, we’ll never give up on each other, and Liam and I will never give up on you.” He turned his head towards the kitchen where David and Mary were fixing a bottle of formula and drinks for the visitors.  “I think you can count David and Mary in with that too.” 

They moved to the living room and Mary took the baby, settling in a chair to feed her, she talked gently to Junior answering his questions, telling him about the school she taught at which he would be moving to soon. David sat on the other side of Mary resting his hand gently on the top of Alice’s little hatted head. 

Liam was stood, as was Kian, he realised how transfixed his little brother was on the baby, but something else had caught Liam’s eyes. In the small trash can next in the living room was a black thing streaked with something white… Liam could recognise it anywhere. “Your backpack…”

Kian blinked a couple of times. “Oh, yeah, erm Alice threw up on it, and I…” He trailed off.

“You don’t need it anymore.” Liam finished. It was a reminder of how he had failed to give Kian a home fourteen years ago. He looked over at the baby in Mary’s arms, blinking her blue eyes up at Mary. “She suits the name, Alice, like mum.” 

“She’s the only person I know who’s deserving of passing on her name.” He told him sincerely. 

Liam agreed and couldn’t help but be glad that Kian didn’t have the “So, Dave and Mary-”

“-They’re sticking with me, with us, they’re not going anywhere….” His voice was low like Liam’s, “I think… I think maybe I might ask them to, y’know…” 

“You wanna marry them?” He was somewhat surprised and just about managed to keep his voice down. 

“I… It’s legal now, and we’ve been together a while it just took us a while to get this apartment an’ I…” He sighed gently. He looked up slowly at Liam, he look just as vulnerable as he had been when he was 12. “I love them.” He whispered. He looked down at the trash can at the backpack, Liam was right, he didn’t need it anymore.

  
  



End file.
